On the Devil's Left
by midnighrunner
Summary: "It isn't love.  Love is a weak word thrown around by fickle people.  Obsession would be a better choice.  A need without rhyme or reason, it simply consumes."
1. Chapter 1

**On the Devil's Left**

"_Sit at my right, and I may smite you; sit at my left and watch me rule the world."_

Chapter One

The Magician

"_He is clever, witty, inventive and persuasive. People listen and agree with him…but it is important to remember that the Magician can as easily be clever as skillful, a trickster as well as a magician. – Most importantly, the Magician stands for the 'reveal.' The handkerchief is draped over an empty box; the Magician waves his wand, 'presto,' now there's a dove in the box."_

_-Thirteen, Aeclectic Tarot_

A flash of silver beneath the blue.

A muscle jumped excitedly in my arm and the shaft almost flew through my fingers out of reflex. Almost. Grimly, I held on, blinking rapidly to refocus eyes that suddenly deemed now the appropriate time to sting and water.

_Patience, Mooch. Don't take it just because it's there. You've all the time in the world, wait for a good one._

It was my father that taught me to shoot, and it was my father I heard now. Coaching me from beyond his early grave to offer help, as always, when I needed him most.

_Don't forget the refraction._

Obediently, I lowered the arrowhead by a fraction, leveling it on the edge of the quicksilver streak I'd glimpsed a moment before.

If you'd have told me – before – that my weekend warrior hobby would save my life, I'd have laughed in your face. Then again, a lot of things have come to pass in the past few years I wouldn't have believed possible: the outbreak of a creepy ass plague, the dead coming back to walk amongst and attack the living, the end of the world….

Wrapped up in a bunch like that, a hunting permit and a compound bow as a pair of life-saving tools maybe wasn't so out there.

Another flick, accompanied this time by a splash and I almost tumbled head-first off the bank the anticipation was so much.

Those sleek, tubular shapes were gliding in and out, darting up and down. For what felt like hours, but was probably more like twenty-minutes, I'd been watching and soon, very soon, one of them would move close enough, would dare to swim far enough from the reedy haven they were playing in and it would be mine.

_Just breathe and focus. You can do thi-!_

The world suddenly exploded into noise and my quiet, riverside afternoon shattered like so much glass. It was the world's worst thunder, a bomb going off, and a plane crashing to earth all rolled into one at once. I almost pitched into the water again as I jerked, heart seizing, and the arrow in my hand snapped away with a _twang_ of bowstring and embedded into the river bottom feet away. The water's surface broke into a cascade of frantic splashes and ripples (dinner beating a hasty getaway) and my pants erupted into a fit of hissing static.

Swearing out of frustration, surprise, fear or some possible combination of the three, I scrabbled to keep my perch, grabbing a fistful of dirt and grass even as my head started swiveling, eyes rolling. What was the source? Where was the danger? How did I get away?

Colors and shapes blurred together I turned my head so fast, trying to see everything at once, but I couldn't - spot – I couldn't find…there was….

Nothing.

No horde of undead howling for my blood, no monstrous salivating beast – just trees, water and hazy sunlight. Even the great, ungodly noise itself was beginning to recede, rumbling back on itself and leaving in its wake an uneasy silence broken only by the languid flow of water and the spitting from my pocket.

Somehow finding my feet on adrenaline shaky legs, I drew away from the water's edge, seeking some of the relative cover provided by the deeper trees. Just because_ I_ couldn't see the trouble didn't mean _it_ couldn't see me standing out there on the open river bank.

_Eyes and ears open, Mooch. Mind your feet. Be ready._

A fresh arrow was drawn from the quiver at my hip; the one lost to the river could stay there, and I sought something sturdy to put my back against. There were a lot of directions, a lot of ways some really bad thing could come barreling down on me; having one side covered, even minimally, would make me feel better. Safer.

Stepping up to a gnarled and dead looking tree I peered around the trunk, and when I was satisfied no bogey was waiting to have at me, planted my shoulder blades on the rough, scratchy bark. Flakes of gray-green lichen puffed into the air, dusting my shoulders as I twisted this way and that, but otherwise nothing moved.

There was neither scent nor sound of anything foul.

Other than, of course, the crackling coming out of my pocket. I was pretty sure, even though it was muffled by a layer of tough fabric, there were a few unhappy curses in there amidst the static. I would have smiled, but I was too busy being terrified.

_The area's as secure as it's going to get. Check in. You don't want them being so distracted with fear for you that they stop paying attention to their own safety._

It took a few more deep, steadying breaths, but I did manage to heed the wisdom in the advice my fatherly head voice offered. Slipping my arm through my bow, the arrow still clamped between my fingers, I freed one hand to dig into my pocket.

The radios weren't much; small, an ugly fluorescent yellow, and useless after a range of three miles, but they, like my bow, had proved invaluable. Parties could separate, covering more ground quickly while still maintaining a line communication. It made for a less stressful trip. Even in these, the days of waking nightmares it was nice to know you were never really alone so long as you had your radio.

Right now a teeny, hollow voice was hollering my name through the channel; alternatively begging me to answer and cursing me when I didn't.

I pushed in the little button and cut off a particularly colorful expletive. "I'm here. Shaved three years off my life, but otherwise unharmed."

Static returned after the release of the button and after a beat so did the voice from the other end. "Don't friggin' do that," it said, somehow managing to sound exasperated even through this imperfect medium. "We were getting ready to set the hounds and mount a rescue party."

I did smile that time, one small ball of anxiety unraveling inside my chest. "Oh, you would have loved the chance to play my white knight, don't even try to pretend like you wouldn't."

"For a trouble-making bitch like you? Forget it. I like 'em sweeter and more inclined to swoon. I'd have come just to see if you'd gotten eyes on what happened."

I wanted to laugh, but we were down to business now and the rest of our relieved insults could wait. "Not so much as a damned eyelash. Just a helluva a clatter."

"Same here – Santa ain't got nothin' on that shit…" there was a moment of open air, then came the million dollar question. "…So what do you think? Get while the going's good? Or possibly risk life and limb to satisfy our curiosities?"

It might just have been thunder, or some other completely benign natural occurrence we had no reason to fear, and I did try for a moment to put together an argument along that vein. But I couldn't even get myself to believe it.

With a sigh, I clicked the transmit button again.

"And cats ain't got nothin' on us."

~.~

The rest of the hunting party, all two of them, were less than a mile south of my fishing spot, at a wide, slow moving bend in the river that was choked at the banks by clumps of thick reeds.

Sarah had been a member of her local girl-scout troop and had, so she said, won two different plant identification merit badges – one for naming all the poisonous plants indigenous to the area and one for being able to name and list the uses of wild growing medicinal plants and fungi. She, gasping and wide-eyed, had assured that there in the mud and muck there would be plants we could both eat and boil down to use as a low-level painkiller. Daryl, bless him, had deigned to stay with the youngster and help with the digging while I went on to search for meated game.

Meeting up with them now was a lot easier than leaving them had been. Not worried about scaring off our next meal, I was able to make better time and it wasn't long before I was coming up on the pair of them: Daryl, turning slowly where he stood, scanning, a handgun pointed loosely at the ground at his side; Sarah, pale and stiff, little hands clamped on the straps of the backpack she was wearing that held, by the looks of the dark green fronds sticking out about her head, the plants they'd managed to uproot.

I instantly felt worse about my decision to let her come along on this trip, and my subsequent choice to track down the source our frightening interruption, at the site of her chewing nervously at her lower lip.

_Just because she's young doesn't mean she's without value, or courage. She wanted to come. She knew she could help._

The reminder didn't necessarily make me feel better, but it made it a little easier to find a friendly smile for her as I jogged up.

"Well, as least one us managed to do our jobs. Good job, guys."

Meryl's eyes softened a fraction. "We caught a few frogs too."

"My, we will be sitting pretty won't we, fresh salad and French food." I did my best to look excited by the prospect as I squeezed her shoulder, but was glad to turn my attention to Daryl. "Got a direction?"

He nodded. "South, I think. The bay, or close to it."

We both glanced up, simultaneously noting the position of the sun.

"Hell of a hike," I said, after doing the math. "We'll have to hustle if we wanna get down there and back to the mill by dark."

"It'll be tight, but I think-"

"I can keep up," Sarah suddenly interjected, guessing, perhaps not incorrectly, what Daryl and I would be thinking. "I promise - and wanna help…i-if I can." She lifted her pointed little chin and looked between us.

_See? Stern stuff._

Daryl smiled. "Well, let's a get a move on ladies. Wouldn't want to chance those froggies goin' bad on us before we get'em home."

~.~

We smelled it long before we saw it.

Acidic, coating the insides of our mouths and the backs of our throats unpleasantly, it was a scent so primal even young Sarah knew it for what it was.

Smoke…fire.

Somewhere, something was burning.

Daryl and I shifted together; making sure Sarah was squarely between us as we shared a nervous glance. Fire could be as dangerous, if not more so, than anything else we might have the misfortune of encountering. Fire wouldn't go down with a well placed shot, couldn't be outsmarted, and could, so easily, kill without even touching.

And insidiously, it was those very dangers that guaranteed now we wouldn't be able to turn and run. We would have to know where it was, whether it was contained or likely to spread, how soon its ravenous path of destruction might lead it to the mill...

The ground beneath our feet eventually turned into a gentle slope and the trees began to thin revealing, high above, a thick, dark plume curling into the sky.

_The bay isn't far out, half-a-mile, a mile max. Maybe it's in the water and we'll get lucky..._

A scream cut through the air, so unexpected it took me a moment's frantic head craning to realize it was actually coming from my immediate left - from Sarah.

Face slack, eyes wide she pointed a trembling hand at a tree kitty-corner to Daryl.

At first I couldn't tell what she was seeing, but once we drew closer, once we could see all the way around the trunk...

"Holy, shit!" Daryl exclaimed wildly, almost losing his balance in his haste to jump back, grabbing at Sarah in an effort to pull the girl behind him.

It was a sentiment I could agree with, and probably have echoed if I could have found the words.

Hanging in the tree, dangling by his torso from a tangle of lines and bright fabric, was a man.


	2. Chapter 2

A/n's: So, I had notes for the first chapter – but I forgot to add them before creating and for some reason my edits don't stick, so here they are now instead. _On the Devil's Left _is the full-born Resident Evil based fic that I mentioned in the author's notes of _The Devil_. I expect this to be a multi-chaptered work, in which each chapter is inspired by, and named after a different card of the tarot.

Now, I should mention, the quote I used at the very beginning of _OtDL_ is one I heard somewhere ages ago that I desperately wanted to use (it should fit rather nicely) but couldn't find again to confirm what my memory was telling me was the correct quote. So, by chance, if you know the quote and I've gotten wrong, do let me know so I can fix it. Also, I lost my beta for this chapter, so if my grammar is worse than usual, that's why. I did re-read it and did to my best, but, well, I suck. Forgive me.

Oh, and as always, enjoy!

Disclaimers: Don't own, blah blah, don't sue, etc, no monies, blah blah.

Warnings: Swearing, some gore.

Chapter Two

Ten of Swords

"_A man dead with ten swords in his back, it's a nasty looking card. Sometimes everything just...goes wrong. And yes, things are as bad as they seem. But, as the fellow in the card indicates, the swords have done their worst. You can't be more dead. It is over."_

_-Thirteen, Aeclectic Tarot_

He was like some poor, mangled marionette, cast aside by his careless puppeteer. He hung limp, swaying lightly from his lines, one of his arms was jutting out at an odd, obviously unnatural angle. His face…was a mess. It was hard to say for sure, but while he may have been handsome once (and there were a few features left intact to add viability to that theory) he was something fearsome to behold now.

Great patches of bare and blistered skin curved over his skull, leaving him more bald than not. One of his eyes was swollen shut and from the corner something dark was oozing slowly; there was a glint of something shiny embedded into the brow bone above and in the eyelid. The rest – almost the entire other side of his face - was an uncertain mass of damaged tissue. A deep, angry red in places, charred grey and black in others and, there, from his jaw down along his throat and disappearing under the collar of his strange clothes –

_Military perhaps? It does have a bit of uniform-flair._

-was a gaping wound, shiny and almost wet looking, inside which I was certain I saw I gleam of white bone. The ground beneath his feet was pooling into a puddle of red-black as blood dripped from under the cuff of the sleeve covering the broken arm – whether it was from the break itself or some other injury unknown I couldn't say.

Either way, it was fairly clear that the poor bastard was in quite the state.

My eyes slowly scanned upward, pulling with difficulty my car wreck like fascination with his horrible wounds up to the twisted wealth of fabric wound amongst the tree limbs above his head.

_Parachute. And…- _my eyes ran along the tangled lines to the heavy straps snug on the man's shoulders – _and a harness. He must have bailed from a – plane! _

"Fuck me, it was a plane crash!" I heard myself whisper aloud in disbelief.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Daryl's head tilt in my direction.

He apparently didn't dare take his eyes off our '_find_.'

"You think?" he asked. "Seems kind of…odd. Who flies now'adays?"

I shrugged. "Military maybe. There's gotta be some of them left somewhere, right? I mean, just 'cause it's been a long time since we've seen anyone doesn't mean they're not out there…" I trailed off as the man twirled lazily in the breeze and flashed me the mutilated side of his face again.

I closed my eyes, waiting for the moment to pass, but I could still see it – him – on the insides on my eyelids. He would be waiting for me tonight in my nightmares, I could already tell.

"Either way, it must have been one hell of a spectacular failure leave him like this even bailing out."

"Is he…_dead_?" Sarah whispered, speaking for the first time from behind Daryl's back, eyes turned resolutely on the ground and decidedly away from the man in the tree.

"Gotta be," Daryl said with a shake of his head as I mumbled, "God, I hope so."

I didn't say that just because in this strange new world of ours the dead had the nasty habit of crawling out of their graves to seek the flesh of the living and I didn't want to have to kill him a second time; I also didn't want to imagine what this sorry soul would have to go through if, somehow, his awful injuries hadn't killed him outright. The pain he would go through, the suffering he would experience….

Surely no one deserved that.

"We should – shouldn't we do something?" Sarah asked softly, glancing at me weakly from under Daryl's arm. "It's not right,…is it? To leave him like that? We should bury him?"

Daryl exhaled heavily and looked at me as well. "We don't have anything to bury him with. And if he is infected he might come back while we're messing around trying to get him out of the tree."

They were valid points – but….

_But it would be disrespectful to leave a body like this. It should be cared for, so the spirit can be free to make its journey to the happy hunting grounds in peace._

"She's right, Daryl," I sighed. "Just because time's are tough doesn't mean we should stop paying the dead their rights. We've got matches, we could – burn him."

He watched me, obviously uncertain, for several long moments then sighed as well and took a sloped look of acceptance. "Fine, but we should still check out the smoke too – make sure fly-boy here didn't start a forest fire."

I nodded, and glanced at the dangling man again. "Okay, so how about you check out the smoke, make sure we're not going to die fiery deaths and we'll," I offered Sarah a little smile of solidarity, "get our friend out of the tree in the meantime."

Daryl glanced over his shoulder, "You up for that, Scout? Or would you rather come with me?"

Sarah chewed her lip and looked for a moment like she wanted nothing more than to cling to Daryl and go far, far away from the dead man. But then she lifted her head, shifted her backpack and nodded at me.

"I'm the one who said it, I should help."

"Sarah," I couldn't help but grin at her, "You are the coolest eleven-year-old ever."

Her lips didn't quite make a smile, but her eyes looked pleased as she moved away from Daryl to stand at my side.

Daryl shook his head. "I have got to stop letting you two hang out together, you're a bad influence," he told me.

"Oh, come on, think how awesome your life would be with two of me," I shot back.

He snorted a short laugh before growing serious again. "Be careful you two. I don't care: no dead man is worth losing either of you."

"We will," I promised. As I spoke I felt a small hand slip inside mine and I gave Sarah a comforting squeeze. "You watch out for yourself too."

"I will," Daryl assured in return.

Then, with the plan laid out and no further excuses to hesitate, Daryl turned away, walked into the trees and shortly disappeared, leaving Sarah and I alone with the task of fetching a dead man out of a tree.

~.~

Pulling him free was out of the question. If respect was what we were going for than it would be highly inappropriate for one; and two, I really didn't think it would work. So, the best plan I could come up with was to climb up beside him and cut the lines holding him to the parachute.

It turned out to be easier said than done.

Oh, the climbing itself wasn't hard, I'd had years of practice at that as a tomboy youth, but the cutting…that was another story. The lines were tangled up in the branches with the fabric of the chute, snarling out like some great spider's web in every which direction and cutting the few closest to my ungainly perch and I found I would have lean over him, perilously close, to cut the remaining.

"Are you okay?" Sarah called up from the ground after watching me fret for a few minutes.

_If he was going to reanimate, he probably would have gone and done it by now. It's usually quite immediate, isn't it?_

"Yeah," I replied, trying to sound more confident than I felt. "Just trying to figure out what's the best way to do this." I leaned to peek down at her from between the leaves, wiping sweat from my forehead with the back of my knife-wielding hand while clinging to the tree with the other. "Be sure to stay back now, Sarah. I don't want him falling on you."

I saw the head of red hair nod, then withdraw from view as the girl stepped back so as to be clear of the fallout.

Turning back, I took one more deep breath, reminded myself again that zombies usually came back shortly after their death, and slowly started to stretch out toward the man. Even as I curled my fingers around the lines needing to be severed and starting slicing with my knife I watched his face, expecting any moment for his eyes to snap open and for him to turn on me with bared teeth.

He didn't, but it still turned out be a good thing I was watching him so closely.

If I hadn't been I'd have never seen the pulse beating, faint but steady, in his throat as I cut his last ties to the parachute.

~.~

I had no hope of stopping him, he was too big and I was too late, but I tried anyway, grabbing at his shoulder as he started to drop away from me. His weight snatched at me, sweeping me easily from my perch. My knife went flying, dropping somewhere out of sight, as I tumbled after him.

For a moment we were simply falling, tangled together, leaves swiping at us – then we were landing. Hard.

Pain (the padding I had built up on my rear-end seemed to have little to no helpful effect) washed over me, lancing from my throbbing tail-bone up the length of my spine to explode before my eyes in a set of bright, flashing stars. There was no breath in my lungs, driven out in a rush by the solid male body that came slamming onto my chest as we struck the ground in an undignified heap.

"I thought we were trying to not get squashed?" came Sarah's voice over the sound of tentative footsteps, surprisingly dry for an eleven-year-old. "Did you fall?"

"Sarah!" I choked her name, wriggling an arm free and waving it. "Help me – he's alive! He's still alive!"

Her face appeared above mine as I pushed up on the man's broad shoulders (I suddenly aware of how remarkably big he was now that he was on top of me) and with her help we managed to roll him over off of me and onto his back.

"Are you sure?" Sarah asked breathlessly as, with a wince and hiss for my sore butt, I rolled and climbed up onto my hands and knees.

Reaching out I pressed my fingers to the good side of his neck – yes, what I'd seen in the tree was real. A steady pulse was beating beneath his skin.

"I'm sure." I released him and reached for the pack on Sarah's back. "Come on, Scout, you're the one with the first-aid badge. I need your help."

"I don't-" she shrugged off the backpack and whipped it around in front her, yanking on the zippers and hurriedly pulling out the long, green stemmed plants with both hands. "I didn't bring anything. Just some water and some bandages, just in case, I didn't think we'd need them – we were going to be back before dark, just one day, I didn't-"

"It's okay," I assured, worried as she started to sound a little hysterical. "We can make that work, right? We can bandage him up for now and take him back to the mill and we can fix him up properly there."

Her mouth worked uncertainly for a moment then, "We need to splint his arm. I know how make one from sticks-"

I nodded, "Good thinking, that's something we can do." I glanced around. "Why don't you go get what you need and I'll work on getting the sleeve out of the way so we can see how bad the break is."

"Okay." Sarah nodded in return and stood.

_She's unarmed._

"But don't go too far, okay? Just in case something else is wandering around out there."

She nodded one more time then sprinted away between the trees, but she was good on her word. Even though I couldn't see her I could definitely hear her, crashing around in the brush, snapping twigs and rustling leaves.

Leaving her to it, I looked back down at the strange man and – found myself momentarily at a loss.

"Sorry about the tree bit," I whispered to him. The need to apologize might have been silly, but it was suddenly paramount. "I didn't know…I was just trying to help. Forgive me?"

He remained silent and still and I nodded, "Yeah, I wouldn't either. Just don't hold it against me, huh? I'll make it up to you in the long run, I promise. Just – not now, 'cause I'm pretty sure what I have to do next is gonna hurt just as much."

I reached for his arm, running my fingers lightly down the length of it before trying to it gently. His clothes were even stranger up close than they had been at a distant. He was completely decked, from head to toe, in fine, lightly checked black leather – complete with soft, well-worn gloves. It was badly scorched in places, completely burned through in others, but there no denying what it was.

Whoever this guy was, he must have had one hell of a day job. Or a completely swinging private life.

Impressive though it was, the leather was a problem. Too tight on his body I couldn't roll up his sleeve to check the severity of his broken arm, I'd have to cut it away, and, of course, I'd dropped my knife during our tumble from the tree.

_For the best actually, you'd probably have stabbed yourself, or him, or both if you'd managed to hold onto it._

With a sigh I looked around, trying to spot the familiar grip or perhaps something shiny amongst the leaves and grass. It couldn't have gotten too far.

As I leaned this way and that, searching, a sudden movement caught my attention and I reflexively reached for my bow – only to remember it was sitting feet away, resting against the tree I'd propped it on before heading up into the treetop. But it was only Daryl, stepping into view, looking startled as his gaze moved between my face and that of the unconscious man.

"Jesus, Daryl, step on a twig next time. You scared the living hell out of m-"

His hand twitched and there was a soft click-

_The safety on a gun being turned off…._

-and the barrel of his pistol started to lift, leveling on the man before me – and I threw myself forward, spreading my arms out over him.

"No! Daryl, don't! He's alive – alive alive!"

At my shouts Sarah came barreling back, popping from in-between a tree and a scrubby pair of bushes, a stick in each hand.

"Sarah, stay back," he ordered the girl and she stopped dead in her tracks. To me, gun still raised he said, "Get out of the way. Move before-"

There was a soft noise and something warm stirred against my cheek. I turned my head, looking down – and I was unexpectedly caught, trapped in surprise by the sudden appearance of my own reflection: a mane of shoulder-length brunette hair framing a heart-shaped face; a sensible nose, a mouth with the lower lip slightly fuller than the upper…and pair of wide eyes that couldn't decide if they were more green or brown.

Then the moment broke…and I realized I was seeing myself mirrored in a pair of slitted, crimson-colored eyes that were staring up at me from above a snarling mouth.


	3. Chapter 3

A/n's: Shoutouts to all of you who've checked this little work out since I started. Shoutouts _and_ internet cookies to DenaHoshigaki and Ceville for their kind reviews. You guys make it all the more fun seriously.

Warnings: Swearing (you should probably just expect this one for every chapter) and…peril? XD

* * *

Chapter Three

Strength

"_Fire is a fearful thing, hot, burning – all too easily able to spark out of control. But with will and intelligence we make it our tool. As with fire, you might get burned a few times by that which you're trying to control, be it a situation, a person or your own unworthy impulses. The important message is not to give up. To have the courage to keep at it till you succeed and to have the faith and optimism that you will succeed."_

_-Thirteen, Aeclectic Tarot_

Time stilled.

Sarah and Daryl disappeared. I could neither feel the breeze in my hair nor the hard packed earth beneath my knees. I was deaf to all but a furious pounding, the rush of my own blood like a wild tide in my ears.

My whole world narrowed down to those eyes – those strange animal eyes in that broken human face _glaring_ up at me. For one sad, delirious moment I tried to tell myself his eyes were simply bloodshot, damaged like the rest of him, but there was no denying those pupils that even now were narrowing into dangerous slits. There was no disease, no trauma I could recall, that would do that to the human eye.

_You should maybe move now, Mooch._

But I couldn't. I tried…but I didn't go anywhere. I could only blink stupidly at the leather-clad fingers that quite suddenly wrapped around one of my wrists. Before it could even dawn on me to gasp in surprise they were tightening into a hard, bruising grip and I was being tugged closer.

"Let her go!" Daryl's voice was like a gun-shot booming in the quiet and beneath me I saw that mouth curl into a sneer. "I will kill you, you son-of-a-bitch, let – her – go."

But he didn't, despite the threats, and mere inches apart now Daryl wouldn't. To shoot now would likely mean hitting, and possibly killing, both of us.

Terror was a palpable thing, heavy and almost alive in the air. I could hear it in the strained quality of Daryl's voice, in the little choked gasps coming from Sarah – I could feel it, burning through my veins and sitting inside my chest like a suffocating weight. What should I do? What _could_ I do?

I tried, as always, to imagine what my father would say, do; but there were no fatherly words of advice to be had. And why would there be? The one time something like this had happened to my father, he'd died. What wisdom could I glean from that?

Daryl started shouting again and this time his words were punctuated by the soft rattle of metal – he must have been waving his gun around.

My terror tripped over into pure panic. My death seemed all but assured now; the only question remaining was at whose hand – the not-man holding me in his painfully tight grasp, or my scared but well meaning best friend?

No.

The word came quite clearly to me as I contemplated my death. I couldn't let it happen like this. If these were destined to be my last moments, I was going to go out fighting.

Like my father.

"Daryl," voice soft, whispering and gentle I spoke and very slowly extended my free hand, palm out, soothingly. I addressed my friend, but kept my eyes on the red-gold gaze searing into mine, "Put the gun down."

"Are you crazy?" Daryl hissed back. "I'm not going to let him-"

"Daryl," I repeated, just as light and calm as I could manage. "It's alright. It's all going to be okay, so just, please, put the gun down."

Tenderly I started to roll my trapped wrist, trying to encourage my silent assailant to grant me my freedom. His response was a violent jerk and pain shooting up my arm as I was pulled so close to him I could again feel his breath against my cheek as well as the heat radiating from the horrible burns scarring his face. The terrible scent of cooked meat – his _flesh_ - filled my nose.

Something moved in the back of my throat, swelled behind my eyes, as it occurred to me for the first time since his eyes had opened how much pain he had to be in. As different as he obviously was, pain (and fear too, I realized) was a universal currency.

"It's okay," I whispered to him too. "You're hurt, and we want to help you. That's all. You're safe, I promise."

Daryl began to make a soft noise of warning, but I cut him off.

"_I promise_."

We stared, the four of us, for several strained heartbeats; Sarah and Daryl watching the pair of us as we studied each other, then, with infinite slowness the fingers on my wrist loosened and withdrew.

I responded with a little nod of thanks, and even though I wanted to rub the ache in my wrist, I refrained. Somehow I didn't think it would help to draw anyone's attention to the fact that I'd been hurt by this - man.

"Okay." Tearing my eyes away finally I looked over at Daryl, who had finally started to lower his pistol. It wasn't all the way down yet, but it was an improvement. "See? Everything's fine."

"Are you sure about this?" Daryl asked, gun still pointed at an intermediate area somewhere a few feet short of the man lying between us. "We don't know what he _is_."

"We know he's not a zombie. He's alive, like us. That's all that matters, isn't it?"

"The world doesn't break down into zombies and good people, you know that."

"So we should just leave him to die, is that what you're saying?" My goal had been to bring the tensions down, to keep everyone alive, but this was a challenge I couldn't avoid. Daryl had a point. This man was something different, something perhaps not entirely human, but did that mean we had the right to deny him help? To essentially kill him?

"You're right, Daryl. We don't know anything about him, and he's obviously – a little different, but just because we don't understand doesn't mean we should automatically assume the worst."

"I…I just don't want anyone to get hurt," Daryl replied weakly, glancing over at Sarah who was watching these events unfold before her with a cautious look of uncertainty.

"But you want us to be killers?" I continued to prompt gently.

Sarah's eyes rounded, "We can't…."

Outnumbered now, Daryl could recognize defeat when he saw it. With a sigh he closed his eyes for a moment before finally lowering his gun the rest of the way. "If I have to say I told you so later, I'm gonna be really pissed."

"Noted." I nodded, hoping deep-down that it would be completely unnecessary, then I waved to Sarah, calling her and the sticks still held clenched in her fists over, "Come on, we need to get a move on. We're gonna be moving slower and it'll be dark before you know it."

~.~

Once upon a time the mill had been the singular source of employment and income for the small west coast town of Purdue, but sometime in the last decade it had closed. The exact reasons for the shut down I hadn't been able to glean from the yellowed and mouse nibbled records scattered through the offices, but whatever the motivation the result had been chained gates, a mess of unemployed workers, and a town with little options.

From what Carl – a retired postal carrier and Purdue native – had told us, those who could stay, such as himself, did, but most other folks had had little choice but to pack up their families and move on in hopes of finding work. Purdue, like the lumber mill that had made it, all but closed up, growing smaller and more forgotten about with every year that passed.

Maybe that was why Purdue fared better than the bigger, more populated areas when the Zombie virus started overtaking the country. With less than a thousand inhabitants, it had burned through the town quickly, with survivors escaping easily into the surrounding woodland and the infected, with no food options, were drawn away to the bigger city centers.

Carl and his band of Purdue survivors had seen the mill in the same way Daryl, Sarah, myself and the others we'd picked up in our crossing from the east had. With its high, strong fences, heavily padlocked gates, direct river access, and ready supply of burnable materials it was the perfect place to hole up, safe from the worst, and wait – for rescue, the chance to rebuild, whatever it was one hoped for these days. They could have refused to let us in, could have attacked us and driven us away, but they'd allowed us houseroom and together, with our varied skill set, we had helped each other survive.

I could only hope now that they would be as willing to take in one more as they had when we'd shown up.

Sarah led the way, backpack bouncing on her shoulders, her long braid hanging amongst the green weeds sticking out the top. She kept glancing back, checking on Daryl and I as we slowly brought up the rear, weighed down by the big man slung between us by his parachute.

As reluctant as he'd been to help, Daryl's idea to pull the parachute from the tree and use it to carry our charge with as little jostling as possible had been a stroke of a pure genius. Our progress was still as slow as I predicted, and dark was encroaching upon us, the sky already a bloody red-purple, but it was a lot easier than I had envisioned.

Truth be told, if it hadn't been for Daryl's quick thinking I'm not sure how we'd have gotten him back. Tall, wide shoulders, and heavily muscled – I was fairly certain not even Daryl, no slouch himself, could have managed carrying him himself.

"Not much farther," Sarah encouraged, helping now the only way she could, cheerleading. "Almost there."

"Let's take a break," Daryl panted.

"But we're almost there!" I gasped back.

"So we can afford a break."

I didn't have much of a choice, already Daryl was lowering his side of the parachute to the ground, and so with a sigh I complied and halted as well.

"Fine, but just a quick one. I hate being out after dark."

As Daryl moved away, rolling and rubbing his shoulder, I stayed back to check on our package.

Throughout the trip he'd lain quiet and still…more-or-less anyway. Every so often I'd thought I'd heard something coming from him, an odd, wet, rustling, but every time I'd glanced down to check, his eyes had been closed, his face relaxed. I figured I must have been imagining it; mind perhaps going a little wild at the possibility of being caught outside my safe haven, at night, with a possibly dying man who was not exactly a man.

As I leaned over him now though, I realized that maybe it hadn't been my nerves playing tricks on me.

He was still wounded, badly, but the terrible wound along his jaw and throat, the injury I was sure would be a death sentence either from the trauma alone, or if he somehow survived that through second-hand infection, had closed. The gaping hole, inside which I had been able to see down through damaged muscle to white bone, had healed.

Oh, not completely. The new skin stretched over the wound was pink and thin, but….

"_Jesus_," I whispered, for lack of anything more intelligent, gaping down at him.

His eyes snapped open, the left one slightly hang-dogged thanks to the still embedded bits of something in his eyelid and brow, and focused, just as intense as before, on my face.

"You are different, aren't you?" I murmured.

He just looked at me, then, perhaps either because it was irritating him, or he was trying to make a point he reached up and ripped the glittering shard from his body.

Instinctively I reached out, meaning to press my hands to the blood now running freely down his face, but he caught me about the wrist again – with the hand attached to the arm that was supposed to be broken!

_Apparently not so much._

His lips pulling into a clear smirk, he turned my hand over, and dropped the dark splinter into my palm before releasing me and again closing his eyes and going still and tranquil once more.

~.~

I couldn't explain how, or why, to the others, and they had no better answers than I when I told them what had happened.

Daryl, though, took it as another worrisome sign; Sarah just chewed her lip and said he was very lucky.

I couldn't help but agree with that.

Daryl argued again that we should just leave him. And I fought him on it, again. And, again, Sarah was the deciding factor. She wisely pointed out that if he'd wanted to hurt us, he'd had plenty of opportunity during our trek.

Once more we took our places, Sarah in front, Daryl and I to either side of our parachute sling, and set out again.

Home couldn't come fast enough.


	4. Chapter 4

A/n's: Big thanks to my reviewers (and shout outs to the new reviewers Tinkies, Lady Nightlord, and Inferno), you guys **all** rock! :D Ya'll will never know how much my day is brightened when I see those little notifies in my inbox.

As a head's up, be sure, if you aren't already, to keep an eye on my profile if you have questions about OtDL – I always update my profile when I start writing a new chapter and give estimates as to when I expect new chapters to go up…as well as other tidbits.

Now, about this chapter specifically: I'll admit it took me longer than I wanted. I had a hell of a time with the beginning, but to make up for it (hopefully) it's grande size! :D Enjoy everyone! (And for the love of all that is holy, please give me your thoughts on Wesker. I don't normally beg for feedback, but he so awesomely badass I am terrified that I haven't lived up to his, well, complete baddassery.)

Warnings: Swearing (again).

* * *

Chapter Four

The Fool

"_The Fool is the card of infinite possibilities. The Fool represents a time of newness, a time when life has been 're-started.' The person feels that they are back at zero. In addition, they likely have no idea where they're going or what they're going to do. But that doesn't matter; the most important thing for The Fool is to go out and enjoy. Unfortunately, a Fool can be a Fool – likely to be overly optimistic or naïve. They may be so busy daydreaming of what may be they're ignoring what is."_

_-Thirteen, Aeclectic Tarot_

The most stressful part of a pulling off a successful raiding party was the re-entrance. Even abandoned for years Mother Nature was taking her sweet time in reclaiming the flat, man-made lake of asphalt ringing the on-foot accessible side of the mill. Weeds and scraggy patches of grass persevered in places, breaking through the black like tiny green islands, but they were neither tall enough, nor concentrated enough, to provide any comfortable amount of cover.

If we were going to be spotted on any part of our journey, this would be it; and knowing one zombie's moan could attract others of its kind from miles away, it wasn't something to take lightly. Just because the mill had proved to be a stronghold for us thus far was no reason to encourage the undead to put to it the test….

Coordination was the key; teamwork between those on the ground and those on the inside. We hovered on the edge of the tree line, radios silenced and our heads on swivels as we scanned for the familiar, jerky movement of the walking dead and waited for the signal.

"We look clear," Daryl whispered.

I started to nod and reply, but was interrupted by an excited tapping on my shoulder.

"There!" Sarah gasped in my ear, her hand appearing in my field of vision as she suddenly pointed out in front of us. From the mill's roof light flashed down on us. Blazing red and orange it was the last rays of the setting sun, reflected back at us in a small handheld mirror. Probably Carl, or perhaps Christy, was giving the all clear. "They're ready for us!"

I glanced down (I'd been doing it so often it felt almost habitual) at the man lying amongst us.

We'd warned the others that we'd be bringing in a wounded stranger with us, and they'd promised to have the break room ready (it was the closest thing we had to a medical theater) but the closer we got, the less I thought it was going to be necessary. It seemed every time I checked he looked, well, better…for lack of a better term. The blood flow from the gash in his brow – created when he,_ himself_, had ripped out a piece of embedded glass – had stopped. His burns had softened, going from angry red and charred black to soft, healthy pink; the horrible wound in his jaw and throat was closing, and I could swear his hair, all burned away save for a few hapless patches when we'd found him, was growing back! The bald areas were filling in with silky, pale strands that appeared to grow thicker and longer by the minute.

How the hell I was going to explain it I hadn't a damn clue, but it was something I was going to have to worry about later. Right now Daryl was rising out of his crouch and taking hold of his side of the parachute, waiting for me to do the same. As I hurried to comply, he nodded at Sarah.

"Alright, Scout – you first."

Shifting her bag on her narrow shoulders Sarah waited until I was ready then gave a sharp little nod of her own and turned, scampering through the brush and out into the open.

A beat – just long enough for a deep breath – and Daryl and I followed, dark shape between us bouncing gently, swaying dangerously close to the ground in his sling as we pushed our pace to an almost jog. His eyes stayed closed, but I could see his mouth purse, jaw setting firm and tight, and it was easy to imagine the dirty look he surely wanted to give us.

Several yards ahead Sarah started to slow, turned her head to look back at us….

"Go, Sarah," I hissed as loudly as I dared. "Don't wait for us!"

I got a flash of her lined and worried brow before her face turned out of sight again and she started putting the distance between us once more – her braid trailing behind her like a fiery tail as she ran. The gate was already beginning to swing open when she reached it – I felt a cool trickle of relief run through me – and a low-set blur rushed through the widening gap. I saw Sarah's head turn to track it, her mouth falling open as a disembodied voice hollered from the other side of the gate, "Spade, no!"

I came to an instant stop, Daryl jerking and almost dropping his side of the parachute at my sudden, unexpected action. I turned my body, trying uselessly to shield the man, "_Spade!_"

Spade was a sweet dog; a barrel-chested mutt who had adopted me almost instantly after we had arrived at the mill…but jumping was, most unfortunately, his favorite greeting and I could see no way, in his exuberance, of stopping him from accidentally trampling all over our strange new friend.

"Spade, down!" I doubled up one fist in the fabric of the parachute, hip bumping the body within as I struggled to hold on and threw my other hand out in a desperate bid to hold the dog off….

But I needn't have worried. Ten feet to go the animal skidded to a halt, pebbles of asphalt scrabbling beneath his paws as his ears flattened to his head and his tail tucked between his legs. He twisted away, back hunching, a low sound whining up from his throat. Not a growl, not a cry, it was something in-between – something I'd never heard from him before. Confused, I gaped at him, forgetting that just a moment before I'd been trying to stop him from excitedly rushing me.

"Spade…what's wrong, what is it?"

The dog just continued to bawl, circling away and slinking back toward the gate as Sarah slapped her knees and called urgently to him until he was close enough to tackle about the neck and drag inside the gate.

"What does it matter?" Daryl suddenly spat from my right, sucking me out of my baffled bubble and back into the wider reality outside of Spade's odd behavior. "We don't get a move on there's gonna be a lot of things wrong right here."

Left alone with the lion's share of the weight, Daryl was losing his hold, the slick red and white fabric slipping through his fingers and threatening to dump the man right there in the dirt.

"Sorry-"

"Less apologizing, more lifting – he's fucking heavy."

I couldn't help it, apologizing again as I brought my free hand back to join the other and heaved, lifting the man a few more trembling inches away from the ground, but then my voice lost to a series breathless pants that mingled in chorus with a set from Daryl as we hurried as fast we could across the parking lot.

It wasn't until we were inside, the gate scraping closed behind us that Daryl spoke again, turning a bemused glare on me, "You would insist on carrying home the one lucky bastard who hasn't been living on a diet of boiled roots and powdered milk."

"Who knows?" Fueled by a strong combination of increasing exhaustion and frayed nerves my laugh was slightly manic even by my standards. "Maybe he'll be willing to share."

Sarah streaked past us, banging open the door and holding it for us (Spade disappeared past with a flash of a skinny white tail). Carl stuck his head over Daryl's shoulder as we shuffled toward the door, worrying at his scraggly salt and pepper beard, "How is he? That's a lot of blood…" he trailed off, chocolate brown eyes traveling slowly over our silent companion's face.

"Not as bad as it looks," Daryl grunted as we squeezed through the door – a sea of anxious, curious faces were waiting for us inside – and hung the immediate right that would lead us down toward the break room. "Trust me."

There were sixteen survivors rooming at Purdue's abandoned mill. Eleven had come from Purdue and its surrounding territories and had been holed up here since shortly after the town's fall to the undead; the other five, which included Daryl, Sarah, myself and two others, had arrived just over a year ago after surviving a long, nightmarish journey from our own lost homes back east. All of them – minus the three of us who had gone out today – were crowded around now; trying to see, trying to help, all talking at once.

A new face was big news here, no matter how damaged it might be, so I couldn't really blame them, but by the third time I almost tripped over a foot too slow to get out of my way I was a tad annoyed.

"Come on, guys. Grab a corner and help or get out of the way." I elbowed a tall, scrawny body out of my way – Andrew, or his twin Kyle, I never could tell which was which – just as few strands of heavy, dark curls brushed my shoulder, a set of hands taking hold beside mine.

"Big boy, ain't he?" Christy whispered in my ear, measuring our guest up with a long sweep of her large, moss green eyes.

"Down girl." Daryl may have rolled his eyes; it was hard to say it happened so fast. "I'm pretty sure this one's not gonna be your type even after we clean him up."

"I didn't-" whatever indignation Christy wished to express was cut off as we got stuck in the decidedly smaller doorway of the break room.

"Jesus, Daryl, suck it in," I shot at him, tone colored a bit by the jolt of pain coming from the hip jammed into the door frame.

"No second helpings of mashed root for you tonight," he returned without missing a beat as we shimmed and wriggled until we popped free.

Sarah was already inside, having held this door open for us as well, and opening up the first aid kid on the counter. "The needles are missing again," she said, pawing through the contents agitatedly.

"Check with Amy," Christy puffed as the three of us lifted the parachute and the man within up onto the table. "She was making blankets again."

Again, the movement was far too quick to tell if it was a true eye-rolling as Sarah pushed away from the counter and headed for the door.

"Sarah, wait-" Daryl caught at her backpack as she passed him. "Hold up, give me your bag, I'll take these-" the reeds rustled noisily as Sarah started shrugging off her pack, "-down to Bill while you go find Amy. The sooner we get those frogs into the pot the happier we'll all be."

Together they departed as Christy turned her head and made a face at me. "Frogs?"

I shrugged tiredly, pulling back the folds of the parachute to get at the man underneath. "Can't be any worse than the rats, right?"

Christy didn't look convinced.

"I know, believe me, you're preaching to the choir, but there's not much we can do about it and…either way, those are delights to come. We've still got these ones to focus on," I continued, nodding down at the man before us. "Sarah's got the first aid kit, and is getting the needles…you want to go get some hot water?"

"Bill got some boiling as soon as you told us you bringing in wounded." She tipped her head and smirked slightly. "And more roots."

"Everybody loves the roots…" I sighed, lips twitched as well. Then, "Okay. Go get some water-"

"Oh, good, I'll be able to nag Daryl into helping."

"-and I'll get washed up and…" I looked down at the face beneath me rather helplessly. "Try to get started."

Christy nodded and gave me a little salute, "Aye aye, Capin'," as she stepped away and ran back through the door.

I half expected those red cat's eyes to snap open the moment Christy's shoulders disappeared around the corner, but, in fact, they remained shuttered, closed off by his eyelids. It was easier, I noted distantly, to look at him this way, to study him when he wasn't staring at me with those eyes like hot coals burning into me with his own silent appraisal.

And I had to admit, he was worth looking at…and not just because the miraculous changes he'd displayed thus far were incredibly fascinating. A full, if rather firmly set, pair of lips, a strong chin at the end of a ruggedly squared jaw, a head of thick dark blond hair to match the elegant crescent shaped fans at the edges of his eyelids….When we'd discovered him I had tentatively guessed that he had once been handsome. I had been half-right.

He was still handsome.

And all too easily I could imagine how even more attractive he would be once the mask of blood and dirt and sweat had been washed away….My fingers were mere inches from his cheek when I finally realized my intent and I snatched my hand away like it had been scalded.

_I never thought I'd see the day my Mooch got all flustered and rosy cheeked by a pair of broad shoulders and big baby blues…__**They're not blue. I'm pretty sure they're not even human. **__Even more reason to hold onto your wits rather than your daydreams, wouldn't you say?_

Even knowing that the voice I heard my head was in fact my own and that its remarkable similarity to that of my father was, apparently, merely my subconscious way of dealing with my father's death (Bill had been a counselor at Purdue's high school and had explained it all to me once in that slow, soothing voice of his after I, fearing for my sanity, confided in him), it was still remarkably disturbing to imagine the man who'd raised me – my _Daddy_ for Christ's sake - being aware of my sexual fantasies – however brief they may have been.

Shaking my head, I stepped back from the table determinedly.

_Washing up would be a good place to start; infection – even when one's not referencing the undead – is still not what anyone wants._

I shook my head again, affirmatively this time, and reached into Sarah's first aid kit, fingers seeking and finding easily the bottle of rubbing alcohol I knew to be kept there. I twisted off the cap as I crossed the floor to the simple, single basin sink and once over it, started pouring the clear, sharp smelling fluid over my hands – alternately, one after the other. It wouldn't be nearly as sterile as anyone would like, but it was the best we could do.

Absorbed in my thoughts of what ifs and whys, I didn't hear anything above the gentle splash of alcohol against the bottom of the sink until a thunderous clatter had me bobbling the bottle with sudden start, great gulps of the precious fluid rushing free into the drain before I managed to gobble it back up.

"Jesus Christ, guys! Scare the every loving shit-" I started even before I had fully turned around.

Turned out I was, once again, only half-right.

It was indeed one of my friends who had scared me. Christy had dropped a big canning pot, the water inside of which was even now escaping across the laminate floor in steaming little rivers…but I was fairly certain she hadn't done it on perhaps.

No, she'd probably been startled too.

After all, it wasn't every day you found the hulk of the man you'd been told was on his death bed, suddenly standing before you, garbed from head-to-toe in black leather and sporting a fierce looking pair of ferally glowing cat's eyes.

~.~

Neither Christy nor myself moved, frozen instead as we were – open mouthed and wide eyed – but he did. Quite calmly, in fact.

Smoothly he reached up with both hands – and slicked back his hair before idly turning an amused and unerringly male smirk on me.

"Right about now I imagine you're finally beginning to admit your friend was right."

His voice was smooth, almost…silky in its easily superior quality, and somehow more elegant than I'd imagined it would be.

Still trying desperately to absorb what was happening right in front me, I went, rather stupidly, with the very first thing that popped into my head.

"Actually, I started wondering about that hours ago – and I'll never hear the end of it if I'm wrong. Please, do kill me first if I am. I'm not sure I could take the gloating."

His lip curled, granting me a flash of strong, white teeth-

-and Christy suddenly exploded from the doorway, "What the **hell** is going on? What the hell is he – what the hell are you?"

I had the good grace not to actually voice the quiet "umm" I heard start up in my head, but unfortunately that did mean silence was only the alternative and with every heartbeat of quiet that passed, Christy's eyebrows disappeared further into her hairline.

"A long story, one I won't bother to bore you with-"

Christy and I both blinked at him.

"-all you need to know…" and he turned his eyes to mine once more, "is that I am, _thankful_, for all your help." And in a gesture that I was certain wouldn't have looked nearly as regal, or condescending, had it come from anyone else; bowed his head, fractionally, to me.

I felt one of my eyebrows twitch upward a split second before Christy said, "Fuck – that. Forget what the hell you _are_, what the hell do you _think_ you are? No one can just come in looking like some gay super villain and think we're just going to-"

"Christiana."

For a second Christy looked like she didn't know who I was addressing, then her face tightened, lips thinning. Christiana may have been her true name, bestowed by loving parents, but that didn't mean Christy had to like it. It hadn't taken me, or anyone else for that matter, long to realize it was an excellent tool for getting her full, unwavering attention (and the full brunt of her attitude, but that was neither here nor there).

"It's fine."

"Are you _insane-_"

"You know you're not the first person to ask me that today? And I somehow don't expect you'll be the last." I was rather proud of how casual and unconcerned my shrug felt. "But regardless of how many times the subject is broached, my answer will ever remain the same." My head tilted again, allowing me a side-ways look at – I still didn't know his name, did I? "Just because someone looks like a 'gay super villain' doesn't mean they are one. We all deserve an equal opportunity to prove whether we're good witches or bad witches."

I knew she'd fight me. I knew her rebuttal was coming – so I cut her off before she could gather her steam.

"Forgive me, do you have a name?" I asked him. "Constantly referring to you as 'him' is giving me a headache."

There was something – there and gone in his eyes before I could even begin to entertain what it might be – before he replied simply, "Wesker."

Wesker.

It somehow felt oddly familiar to my mind, as if I had heard it somewhere before, but surely a name that unique I would be able to recall exactly?

Wouldn't I?

Apparently Christy felt the same. I could hear her whispering it thoughtfully to herself. But after a moment she seemed to come up empty too and returned again to glaring distrustfully.

"Wesker…" I finally repeated. . "Well, as you can see, Christy has some questions for you too-"

"Damn, right! What the-"

I cut Christy off again. "And I can almost assure you the others will to, so how about we cut to the chase…and handle all the introductions at once?"

"Oh, this should be good." Christy shifted and folded her arms over her chest sharply. "Should I go round everyone up? Maybe if I'm quick enough we'll have time to break out the pitchforks and torches."

That smug little curling of his mouth appeared again. "I thought you'd never ask."

~.~

The break room was far too small for everyone to fit into, so instead - after a quick wash and cleanup - I led Wesker down to the main floor. The machinery that could be moved, had been, long ago now and in their empty places years worth of raiding had produced several couches and armchairs – all of them ugly, not a one of them matching – a few tables and a smattering of chairs to go with them, a dirty old area rug, and, the source of all our meals, one slightly rusted Hibachi. It was the natural gathering space, so it didn't really take long for Christy to have everyone to congregate together in one quivering, whispering mass - though thankfully there wasn't a pitchfork or torch in sight. Some of the faces were openly fearful, others merely curious, but all were uncertain, and all of them I needed to convince.

Wesker himself wasn't much help even though he stood still and straight, answering the questions hurled at him with barely a change of infliction in his cool, silk smooth voice. Those eyes, combined with the fact they had all heard my earlier radio transmission describing, in detail, how horrific his injuries had been, made it hard to focus on much of anything else.

It wasn't until someone – Sarah actually – had the nerve to ask the all important question that the tide finally began to turn.

Could he help us?

He'd been flying, he was obviously well fed and taken care of….could he somehow provide us with these same pleasures?

Even I was a little surprised by his response.

Yes, he had said. He believed so. Quite so, in fact. He told us he came from somewhere safe, somewhere free of infection, somewhere other survivors like ourselves were gathering. There was food, protection…everything we could want or need. And, he told us, he could take us there; just as soon as his people picked up the GPS locater inside his watch and came for him.

Voices turned excited, hopeful; the faces became friendly and suddenly, despite his oddness, no one wanted Wesker gone.

Eventually it didn't even become necessary for him to speak, everyone was talking amongst themselves, planning and hoping, and I saw him standing back, arms folded across his broad chest, looking quietly pleased with himself.

I almost decided against it, but eventually slipped over, addressing him softly. "You just made a lot of people happy."

"Oh, I assure you the pleasure is mine."

"I don't know about that, I think Christy is still debating whether or not to kiss you."

He made an odd movement with his mouth, reminiscent of something I had once seen an old pet snake do after eating a particularly plump mouse. A curl of the lips, and a slide of the tongue…resettling fangs back into their proper place.

The act spanned only seconds and once completed his face was once again cool and composed, if missing the little smirk he'd been sporting before.

I found myself wondering if I'd imagined it.

"I'd like to see the rest."

Caught off guard – I'd still been arguing with myself – I blinked, "I'm sorry, you must be tired…"

Those burning eyes turned on me. "You don't even know the half of it."

I didn't have the guts to tell him I believed him, but I did step back, turning away from the crowd to lead him away into the deeper quiet of the mill.


	5. Chapter 5

A/n's: Well, well…an interesting bunch of reviews there. Thank you all for taking the time. You gave me a lot to think about!

Hopefully, I've managed to prove myself worthy of all your kind words, found a way to redeem myself were I was lacking, and ensured you all will continue to read and enjoy.

Warnings: (I told you) Swearing.

* * *

Ace of Cups

"_This usually indicates that one is feeling a new welling of emotion or beginning to have some vivid dreams. You're not writing the poetry yet, but you feel the desire to, or you may have caught sight of a figure across a room and felt a tug at your heart. You've lifted the cup and you want to drink from it."_

_-Thirteen, Aeclectic Tarot_

Everyone deserves a chance to prove themselves, we cannot judge on impulse alone….

I had been saying those things all day - to Daryl, to Christy, to everyone who had wanted action first, questions later - and I did believe them. I had to. To forsake that basic human right, to let fear cloud new possibilities,…to let hate keep me from reaching out to someone I could help, or someone who could help me. I had promised I wouldn't let it come to that.

_That's how humanity really dies, Mooch. It won't be a plague, or war, or fire, or hunger; it'll be when people let fear decide. It'll be when you're too scared to think 'us' rather than 'me.'_

In my heart of hearts, I had to trust people. I had to hope. Otherwise what reason was there, after I blew my candle out at night, to ever get back up to face the new dawn?

Wesker was different, yes. His eyes, his miraculous healing, even his strange attire all made for an odd package; but even more that, there was something _unsettling_ about him. The way he moved, the way he held and carried himself, the way he spoke, it was all so cool and smoothly composed - professional…Combined with those eyes, those eyes the color of burning coals that glowed like twin fell flames when he turned them upon me, it was certainly frightening. I didn't deny it. Alone with him now, I did feel uncertain. I did feel fear.

But he had done nothing to hurt me, or anyone else, and I could not condemn him for what he was simply because it was not the same as me. I could only lead him on the tour he'd requested, responding, when prompted, to questions that were not so much asked as demanded.

It wasn't the tone that made them rankle uncomfortably in my brain, but rather how they were worded. His questions, like the rest of him, felt somehow coolly deliberate, as if the answer would by some means mean something completely different to the both us. In response, my reaction was at once childish, reckless, and completely necessary.

For every question he posed, I waited no less than five seconds to respond, using those heartbeats of silence to try and uncover any and all secondary meanings they might possibly have, and to carefully craft my answer. If I was wrong, and he was actually as dangerous as first reactions foretold, it was probably something like poking a bear with a stick and I would likely pay for my irritating behavior; but, even though my heart squeezed more scorching terror through my veins every time he leveled that stare on me and looked for a second like he was considering shaking my answer from me forcibly, it was also somehow rather satisfying.

He had me all wrong-footed and second-guessing; it was sort of nice to think I had managed in some small way to return the favor.

That, and the rush of fight-or-flight adrenaline was incredibly thrilling.

Some of the rooms we passed through held his interest and we played this game at length, others he went by without a word and barely a blink. The roof, in particular, when we came to it inspired quite a bit of stilted conversation; especially when the twins, Kyle and Andrew, came through as part of a scheduled patrol.

Obviously startled, their hands moved in unison to the weapons they carried – Kyle's to the pistol snug in the holster on his hip, Andrew's to the machete strapped on his back – but as they looked between us, and met the crimson stare of Wesker, they were quick to reverse their actions and move away. They faded into the dark, pale flashlight beams bouncing over the ground as their footsteps were swallowed up by the crunch of gravel and the hiss of hurried whispers.

When they were completely out of sight, Wesker turned back and I saw his eyes flick to the bow and quiver that were still suspended across my back.

"It's admirable that you're all armed, but your weapon choices seem a bit – rustic. I'm beginning to think I really should expect pitchforks and torches…."

He did have a point; I forced myself to admit that. Bows were only useful if you had arrows, knives were only deadly if you got close enough….But I was good with my bow, very good in fact, and it was a skill I could thank my father for, so as much as I didn't want to sink into the defense and take that statement as an insult, I still felt the hairs on the back of my neck prickle as heat rose in my chest.

"I hate to disappoint, but I'm afraid we're fresh out of pitchforks, but if you can contain yourself until we get back inside we can probably manage a torch or two for you," I replied, with a little more cheek than I'd dared thus far.

That look flashed across his face again. That slight cocking of the head and thoughtful stare that made me think he was contemplating whether or not I was worth the waste of his time.

I did my best to hold out beneath the weight of that gaze, but answering was almost like a compulsion. Perhaps I was simply too much of a coward to see through whatever consequences may or may not have been coming, or maybe my general desire to please was simply too strong. Either way, I broke the silence with a small sigh of defeat and said, "Patrols are always two members with opposing strengths. A gun may have sheer stopping power on its side, but it needs to be reloaded and, frankly, can be heard for miles – especially at night. Knives are quiet and don't need to be reloaded, but you have get within biting range to make them worth the effort. Bows have stealth and arrows can be reused, but are slower on the reload."

"Sixteen is an impressive number. I surprised so many of you have managed to survive and find each other."

I hesitated, folding my arms over my chest to ward off a sudden chill. "There were more."

_It's okay, Mooch. They don't blame you. And neither do I. _

His attention didn't waver. His eyes, alive with that unnatural, unexplainable, and intriguing light, pinned me in place.

"They're dead."

"Unfortunate."

Expecting the usual platitude, the reflexive 'I'm sorry' that no one ever really meant, his response slipped completely under my guard. It had that same specifically intentional feeling that made everything else he said feel so dangerous, and perhaps because of that, because I knew he'd chosen that word for a reason (even if I wasn't quite sure I understood what that reason was) that made it feel more honest than the similar, more automatic, sentiments I had heard from Carl, and Christy, and Bill….everyone.

The only response I could come up with was a quiet, "yes," and a quick change of subject.

"Patrols consist of a team of two, running from sunrise to sunset and switching off with a fresh team every four hours; from sundown to sunup we double up – running two teams that switch off after six hours." Wesker watched me with intense interest as I spoke and a tingle of awareness – of myself, of him, and how close we were, shadowed together in this dark corner of the rooftop - tickled up my spine, and I found my ears tuning unconsciously for sounds of Kyle and Andrew as I wished I could see beyond the composed mask that was Wesker's face to the wheels I could all too easily imagine turning inside his head. "Rotation chart is downstairs, in the office wing – we use a dry erase board."

He moved - a smooth ripple of muscle that had the tickle playing along my spine turning into a tremor – easily shifting his arms back, one hand wrapping around the wrist of the other as he replied, "Show me."

~.~

In the time we'd spent on the roof, the interior of the mill had been transformed. A deep thrumming vibrated through the air as we descended through the stairwell and above our heads the once dark lights were now alive with a pale, occasionally flickering glow.

"You have power." Wesker's eyebrows were lifted, but it was, as all the others had been, a statement, not a question.

But then, questioning the obvious would have been rather silly, and if there was something, anything, I had definitively decided about Wesker in the admittedly short time I'd known him thus far, it was that he was certainly not silly. Scary, intimidating, confusing, annoying…thrilling - I'd use any of those words, but no, not stupid.

"In a manner of speaking," I replied, glancing at him out of the corner of my eye. "It's not as reliable as we'd like, and requires a little more effort than just flicking a switch, but we manage."

"I don't recall seeing a generator."

I shook my head. "That's because technically we don't have one. But this place is a factory and factories tend to have lots of useful machinery - if you know what to do with it."

"And you do."

"Not by myself, I had help."

"But it was your idea."

_No shame in having a little pride, Mooch. __**Thanks to you.**_

"Wiring the building's electrical grid to run off a battery was easy once we got one big enough – Carl pulled it out of some old land-yacht Ford – it's keeping the battery charged that's more difficult. The engine from a forklift left over from when the mill closed did the trick until we ran out of diesel fuel to run it…then we had to convert it to run on something else."

"Vegetable oil."

I felt my lips twitching in spite of myself. "I wish…"

One of his eyebrows moved a fraction of an inch.

"Fat," I supplied. "Animal fat, specifically. Boiled down, strained repeatedly…it stinks to high heaven, but it gets the job done."

"How resourceful," he acknowledged smoothly, inclining his head just so.

It was probably dumb to think so, but his response rang almost like approval and the corners of my mouth turn even further upward as we reached the landing and I reached to push open the door to the offices – or, if you went by their current purpose, the bedrooms.

Wesker slipped through the doorway first, and though he then waited silently for me to join him once more, it still felt almost as though he were leading, and I was the one following. Perhaps it was just the unfailing confidence in his smooth, powerful gait even when faced with this, the true heart of the mill where – if anywhere – he was most likely to face rejection, or maybe it was just that for every one of his long-legged strides I had take an extra half just to keep even. Whatever the cause, I found myself copying him: standing straighter and wiping my tentative smile into an expression of composed indifference as we moved down the hall and into the inner sanctum.

Disbanded from the earlier gathering, most of the other survivors had returned either to their appointed tasks – like Andrew and Kyle taking up perimeter patrol – or come back to their quarters, allowing them now to peer out at Wesker and I as we passed. I saw a few uncertain smiles and even a miniscule wave from Sarah, but otherwise whatever my compatriots were thinking they kept it to themselves.

The duty rotation board was in the middle of the hall, square between two office bedrooms. On it was listed every task we'd deemed important enough to be repeated – everything from the daily patrols to the twice weekly refueling of our makeshift forklift generator – followed by the name of whatever lucky soul had earned the honor of seeing it done. Tacked to the wall underneath on scraps of paper was a homemade calendar to help us keep track of when to rotate chores. I realized with a start as Wesker looked it over that until – if – his promised help arrived, I would have to add him to the list.

It would only be fair (after all we all did it), but I still found myself worrying inexplicably about how to broach the subject with him. Seriously beginning to stress I was heartily relieved when a soft, gentle face appeared from around the doorway to my left and provided a well-timed interruption.

At first glance, one might only see Amy for her faults. The oldest of us at sixty, she was slower, weaker…generally just not as able to provide as much as those of us half, or a third, her age, but to us she was more than worth her weight in gold. With everything she'd seen and done, and survived, she was the ultimate symbol: of strength and perseverance and, as morbid as it might seem, hope. When tomorrow was uncertain, and living long enough to see your next birthday seemed like a herculean challenge, seeing someone who had done it, was doing it, was incredibly motivating.

Plus, she took the crown for sweetest person ever without even trying. Always a smile, always a kind word, had she physically been able to I wouldn't have been the least bit surprised to find her baking cookies and offering tea.

Right at the moment though she was merely reaching out to me, resting a gentle hand on my elbow while shooting soft reproachful glances at Wesker – who for his part stared back rather expressionlessly - as she spoke, "Excuse me, dear, but, may I…?"

"Of course - yes," to not smile was impossible and I found her hand on my arm with one of my own and gave it a little squeeze. "By all means."

"Well dear, I couldn't help but notice earlier that our new-" there was a slight change in inflection that gave away how carefully Amy was choosing her words, though I had to give her props for the way she met his gaze squarely and did her best to deploy her most winning smile, "-young man is in need of some new clothes. I dare say we have some that might fit him."

"Oh, I – well…." I glanced at Wesker, who was continuing to watch Amy dispassionately (of course if there was anyone capable of resisting the old woman's charm it would be this man), and noticed for the first time since he'd climbed off that table in the break room and surprised us all that his clothes were, in fact, just as ruined now as they had been when we'd tumbled out of that tree.

That made sense, of course. Just because the man could heal himself didn't mean his clothes were so inclined (and thank God they weren't as I wasn't certain my brain could handle that level of weirdness). I credited his ability to command attention and his unwavering, almost regal self-assurance to so completely wipe my mind of something I was already aware of and would have, under normal circumstances, already taken steps to rectify.

I watched his blood colored eyes slowly track over Amy and then me - I tried desperately to ignore the way every muscle in my body tightened in response - and for once I could guess what he was thinking.

"It probably won't be the latest and greatest in leather wear," I offered softly, feeling remarkably like I was trying to offer a pauper's rags to a king. "But they'll be clean, and burn free – practicality has to count for something, right?"

I felt Amy carefully extract herself from my hold and was distantly aware of her slipping back into her room, but before I could successfully coach myself into pulling my gaze from his searing one, she was back with a dark green duffel bag, carrying it by its heavy canvas strap. I looked, realized, and blinked at her in a sort of numbed surprise.

She pushed it into my hands and patted my arm. "You said you didn't care, but I didn't believe you. Good thing too, I think." With an encouraging look for me, and one last considering one for Wesker, Amy pulled back one final time and left the pair of us alone in the hall once more.

I knew what I'd find inside. Even though it had been almost two years, the memory of my last look was as clear and bright as crystal. I wanted to disagree, wanted to call after Amy and tell her to come take it back, but objectively couldn't. Wesker might have been a bit broader in the shoulders and rather more muscled along the arms and legs, but he and my father were very near in height and could I really deny a man clean clothes simply because they belonged to someone long gone?

No. I couldn't.

Slowly, finally, I held the bag out to him in turn. "Well, I can _definitely_ promise you they won't be fashionable, but they will be-"

"Serviceable?" he cut across with a curl of lip, looking for a moment at the strap in my outstretched hand like I was trying to hand him something unseemly. "How charming." But he did shift eventually, holding out one gloved hand and waiting for me to deposit it into his upturned palm.

"Serviceable," I agreed, proud that I only hesitated a moment longer before handing it over.

As his fingers curled slowly over the strap I gave myself a deep mental shake. Seeing my father's bag had thrown me off my game, but what was done was done and there will still a great many things to be addressed. Willing myself straighter, I lifted set my chin and opened my mouth-

-and was interrupted again. This time by Daryl as he came popping out of the stairwell at the end of the hall.

His eyes lighted upon me, "I've been looking for-," then he saw Wesker and expression went guarded, his quick pace slowing as he moved toward us, "-you. I was hoping we could talk." He rolled his eyes toward Wesker.

Wesker didn't have to move. He simply stood and _radiated_ cool superiority.

Daryl's eyes snapped back to me as a muscle in his jaw ticked. "Alone."

Apparently whether they were human or something else males were still males and I felt a quick jolt of annoyance. "Can it wait? I'm in the middle of something."

"I'm sure _it_ will be fine without you for five minutes."

"Daryl-" I glanced nervously at Wesker and saw his mouth go firm as those dark pupils narrowed until there didn't seem to be any at all. "Alright - fine." This wasn't the way I'd wanted to go about it, but with little other choice I turned to Wesker and said, "It's not the Ritz, but it's 'serviceable.' Pick a room, see if they want a roommate."

Daryl looked mightily liked he wanted to say something at that, something very not nice if I was any judge, but thankfully he managed to hold his tongue. Before tensions could climb any higher or any more threads of bloodshed could be made, I gestured for Daryl to lead the way, even going so far as to give him a quick little shove when he didn't immediately make a move.

As we walked away I had to force myself not to look back.

~.~

We didn't go far, just back into the stairwell, and waiting for us was a third party, hanging uncomfortably a few steps up the next flight and wringing his hands.

"Oh, Carl," I sighed. "You too?"

But before Carl could do more than look awkward, Daryl was growling and stalking past me. "What the hell was that?"

"What was what?" I asked tightly, watching him jam his shoulders into a corner and clench his arms over his chest agitatedly.

"You're practically inviting that thing to slit our throats!"

"I offered him clean clothes and a place to sleep, what should I have done instead?"

He didn't reply. He didn't have to, what he wanted was written all over his face.

I fumed. "He's not a _thing_, Daryl. He has a name."

"He is, mighty different," Carl piped in softly, looking between Daryl and I worriedly. "None of us has ever seen anything like him. We all talked about it after – well…" Somehow Carl managed to look even more ill at ease, downright fidgeting where he stood.

But Daryl was quick to swoop in and take over again. "And that's another thing: what were you thinking? Going off alone with him, he could have-"

"But he didn't," I shot at him coldly. "Look-" I patted at myself, hands slapping mockingly over my torso, hips, and thighs, "-still in one piece."

Carl stayed silent, casting his eyes down at his boots. Daryl ground his teeth.

In the passing hush I forced a deep breath in my lungs and slowly out again. "Look, I know, alright? He's different, he's strange, he's scary, and we can't guarantee anything he says…I know. But don't we owe it to ourselves and the others to at least give him a chance? What he's offering, if he _does_ mean it…." Gradually my quick-silver flash of anger began to recede and my voice began to level out again. "We can't stay here forever. The town's been all but picked clean, we have to go farther and farther away to find supplies, and in the last few months we've been seeing more and more of the undead – they are working their way to us, slowly, but surely. We'll have to leave eventually, why not believe in the opportunity he's offering? What's the harm?"

"And if he's lying? If he's just…using us, or worse? Then what?" We were still on opposite sides of the fence, but Daryl too was starting to come down.

"We keep our eyes open," I replied, shrugging helplessly. What else could we do? "And we cross that bridge when, or if, we come to it."

Quiet stretched between us again, all of us mentally chewing over what the other had said. Eventually, Daryl looked over at Carl, who worried his hands a bit more then nodded.

Two to one.

"Fine," Daryl snapped, pointing viciously between Carl and I. "But at the first sign of something dirty slumber party's over."

I nodded. "That's fair."

Daryl worked his jaw for a moment more then, perhaps because he needed the last word on this one, "And keep him out of my room. I don't need a damn bunk-buddy."

I was careful not to smirk, but I certainly wanted to.

~.~

When I returned to the offices, Wesker was no where in sight. Moving down the hall I glanced surreptitiously into rooms as I passed, not really expecting, but hoping all the same. Something told me where I'd find him and the very idea twisted in my gut like someone was trying to slip knot my intestines. I had made the offer, I would live up to it, but that didn't mean I couldn't be a little nervous about it.

Carefully I worked my way to the end of the hall, pausing once to compose myself, before finally coming up on the last room.

The corner office had stood open throughout the years Carl and the Purdue survivors had lived here; both because its size – it was the biggest of the bunch - made it contentious and there seemed no fair way to decide who got it, and because its large bay windows made it the most vulnerable, but when my group had arrived, it was natural one of us would have to take it, there simply wasn't enough room elsewhere and with little to left to lose at the time, I had volunteered.

And somehow I had just known Wesker would choose it. Part of it, I thought, was because he naturally seemed the type to want the biggest, the best…and another part couldn't help but wonder if he'd have chosen my room just to fuck with me, perhaps hoping to keep me uncertain and confused.

If the latter was the case, then I had to admit he was right on the money.

Every practical thought was chased from my head the instant I turned into my room – every intention I had of being just as easy and cool as he, even if I had to fake it with everything in me, evaporated like smoke.

He was standing at my desk (which was the original one from when I had moved in), my father's bag open before him. He'd changed from the waist down, but seemed to be still in the process for the other half. Something electric seemed to dance through me, rooting me to the spot. Useless for anything else, my brain simply absorbed, eyes sweeping over him wildly.

A broad, powerful back to match the shoulders that tapered down to narrow hips, heavily muscled arms that rippled as he reached for something on the desk…He didn't turn, didn't bother to acknowledge my arrival in any way though I'd have bet anything he was aware of it – that might have snapped me out of it sooner. Embarrassed I'd have blushed and apologized and backed out, but because he didn't I was trapped; trapped until my mind finally caught up and began to see the wider picture, finally beginning to take in the details more important than a half-naked man (even a good looking one).

Like, for instance, just what it was he was about to pick up from the desk.

Not a shirt, that was in his other hand. No, it was shiny, cylindrical….

My eyes, already wide and round, somehow managed to expand even further and it was a wonder they didn't just pop out and go rolling across the room as I jumped forward, crossing the floor in a pair of quick bounds.

"No! Don't-"

And he didn't. Instead of picking up the deceivingly generic pop can sitting on the desk, his hand suddenly snaked around and clamped down on mine - seconds before it would have landed on his arm.

With my words dead in my throat, he turned finally to look at me and spoke instead.

"For someone spouting such noble intentions of fair play and equal chance, setting booby-traps seems remarkably under-handed." He wasn't laughing aloud, but I got the feeling he was doing it internally.

Indeed, the can on my desk was a trap. Packed with a dangerous mixture of my own making it was sealed with a thick wad of bubblegum and wired, carefully, to the two big windows. I couldn't watch them all the time and they'd made me particularly nervous when trying to sleep, the little bomb made me feel better. Safer.

"Yes, well," I blinked at him, realizing with a sharp jolt that he'd removed his gloves. We were skin to skin. "If someone can't come up with a plan to prove themselves to me that doesn't involve climbing in through my windows then chances were we weren't going to get along well anyway."

His eyes gleamed, glowing like an animal's and I was granted a flash of teeth again as he smirked. "How very ruthless of you."

My heart jumped in my chest. A considerably large portion of my brain seemed to be wrapped in detailing what his bare fingers felt like on my skin…and how very much of his skin was mere inches from me.

"I try to please."

He didn't respond to that. He just watched instead, cat's eyes studying my face, looking for…what I didn't know.

I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to.


	6. Chapter 6

A/n's: Ugh, this took forever. I hope ya'll can forgive me. I started a new job this last Monday (a job that starts at 4am every day I might add), and I kept getting into these bouts where I would look back at what I had and hate it and delete everything and start over. Also, my birthday was Friday. So it was a busy, stressful week to say the least.

But hey, I did get it done! :D As always, please enjoy and again, I hope you can forgive the delay.

Warnings: Swearing, violence…and lust? (Just in case.)

* * *

Chapter Six

Two of Cups

"_The twos indicate duality, but, more importantly, they indicate instinctual knowledge. The Two of Cups is one of the easiest cards to read – it is recognition of love, of a friend or soul mate. It predicts you will find someone who 'knows' you, and you, in turn, will 'know' them."_

_-Thirteen, Aeclectic Tarot_

To my horror, and my wonder, the pad of his thumb brushed over my wrist in a slow, deliberate perusal. My pulse, already pounding, thumped harder as his touch pressed against it.

I couldn't breathe.

His grip tightened, flexed, and the pressure had me moving closer, bending to his subtle, silent command. I wanted to close my eyes, hide, and pretend if I couldn't see him, it wasn't happening, but I couldn't.

Or maybe I didn't want to….

I could feel the warmth of his body now, could feel that body feather against mine as we breathed and every nerve in my body sizzled in awareness. I had to tilt my head back further to keep his gaze, and I felt even weaker for it, smaller…helpless.

Like a mouse caught in the stare of a cat.

"Are you afraid?"

Terrified. Muscles were jumping and twitching in my legs, threatening to take my feet out from under me.

"Should I be?" I tried to disguise it, but my voice betrayed me. Soft and breathless, it was nothing like the serene, untroubled tone I'd been hoping for.

He tipped his hand, turning mine over and exposing the soft, pale underside of my wrist and arm. He broke our stare to drop his eyes down, watching his fingers as he brushed them over my pulse again and the thin, turquoise veins running just under the surface.

"Yes," he murmured, and his eyes flicked back up, locking onto mine again. "You should."

Why, I wanted to ask, but my mouth had gone dry, my throat constricting around the words, and I could only look at him – waiting.

For several more heart stopping moments he contemplated me and whatever desires were rolling around inside him, and then, as suddenly as I had found myself in his grasp, I was released, my hand cast away with a little fling. Drawing back, he took the shirt he'd selected in both hands and pulled it down over his head as he turned away, moving around the desk.

I, on the other hand, could only lean against it. I might have swam the Atlantic, or climbed Mount Everest, the way my body felt. My muscles were trembling and burning, the desk was actually holding me up more than they were, my heart was pounding so hard and fast I thought my ribs might break under the force. I felt like I'd survived a terrible battle, I felt lucky, I felt…alive.

Earlier I enjoyed the little rush of danger, the thrilling spike of adrenaline, but feeling this…reacting this strongly…..

Playing with fire could get you burned.

There was a soft creak from behind me, then a gentle scraping and a muted thud. I glanced back over my shoulder and saw that Wesker had settled into the desk chair and pulled the bag out of his way, dropping it to the floor so he could get a better look at the desk's surface – at the map stretched across the smooth wood.

Really nothing more than a basic road map, I had found it amongst the remains of a charred, one-story colonial that had definitely seen better days. It had been useful, to a point, and I had been working ever since to make it even more so. Slowly I'd been updating it, making it reflect current circumstances - blocked roads, fouled water supplies, things like that – and Wesker ran his hands over it now, flattening, stretching…running his finger along the winding river route the same way it had trailed over my skin just moments before.

My skin…my map...my desk...my room.

Our room.

I shook my head, managed to find enough saliva to swallow and croaked softly, "You didn't ask me if I wanted a roommate."

He didn't look up. "Do you really think your answer would have mattered?"

"No." I paused, then reached up to slowly lift my bow and quiver off my shoulder and over my head. "But then - I did expect you to pick this room."

He lifted his head, cocked it slightly, and leaned back smoothly in the chair. "You are a perceptive one, aren't you?"

"I have my moments."

"Apparently often enough that they-" his head tipped a little further, giving a minuscule nod toward the door, "-are content to follow you."

I glanced toward the door and then moved in the opposite direction, the pegs I hung my bow and quiver on were on the other side of the room. "They don't 'follow' me. We discuss and we decide together-"

"Modesty. How boring," he interrupted flatly, "and stupid, considering I've seen the truth for myself." The silk slowly wound back into his voice as he continued, like a serpent slipping through the grass. "They ask you, they differ to you, you-" I turned after depositing my weapon in time to see him lift a hand and point at me, mouth lilted into that increasingly familiar smirk, "-are the one to watch. You are the one to know."

My pulse, finally starting to settle, began to thump again. "I could say the same about you."

"You're free to ask."

"But will you answer?"

His smirk leisurely deepened. "I'll make you a deal: for every question you ask me, I get to ask one of you."

"Why does that sound more like a challenge rather than a deal?"

"Afraid?"

It was the very same question he'd asked before. A bit more directly, perhaps, but nevertheless the same, and it sent my head spinning back to that moment when he'd touched me and looked for an instant like he wanted to….

The memory triggered something warm and clenching low in my belly and I cut it off with a rather desperate reply, "How did you end up in that tree?"

It was something I'd wondered about and that hadn't been asked and was the first thing that popped into my head.

Wesker paused – just long enough to tempt me to fire his 'afraid' quip back at him – then smoothly said, "An error in judgment."

My initial response was that that wasn't an answer, then a little light went off in my head and I blinked at him, mouth twitching. "You made a mistake?"

His lips pursed, thinning. "A miscalculation."

I couldn't help it; the laugh that bubbled up was entirely unstoppable. "That sounds like semantics to me."

His nose flared slightly with a heavy exhale and he rolled his shoulders purposefully – it was a wonder the seams of that dark navy shirt didn't pop under the stress. "My turn."

My amusement died away as I wondered, and worried, over what he would – or wouldn't – ask. Tensing, I waited uncertainly.

"Who's the trap for?"

I felt my brow furrow in confusion. "What do you mean?"

His smile was slightly patronizing. "One doesn't take the time to craft and set a bomb just because; one does it because they expect to need it. And since your biggest and most immediate concern should be creatures that can neither climb nor open windows, I ask again, who do you imagine will be wanting to pay you a visit in the middle of the night?"

"I-" I stared at him, and Wesker stared back, unblinking and unwavering.

He made a little gesture with one hand, slightly bored, as if to say, _'Yes, on with it….'_

"You're not the only one who made an error in judgment…." My eyes flicked down, searching out the bag on the floor – I could just see the strap trailing around one of the desk's legs. "Only mine didn't end me up in a tree. It got people killed."

"Ah," he purred knowingly, the amused sound rumbling in his throat as he leaned back. "How refreshing – revenge. A motivation I can appreciate."

The wrinkle in my brow deepened as I blinked and, at his words, searched inside myself. "I've never thought of it that way."

"Of course you wouldn't. I imagine you tell yourself it's righteous precaution." He smiled. A handsome display of teeth that should have, on anyone else, been endearing, but just made him look even more dangerous.

He propped up one arm by the elbow and idly picked at his nails with his thumb as he continued to grin. "Am I right?"

I didn't have to speak, just frown, and his low hum of delight turned into a full blown chuckle – a dark, deep roll of laughter over as quick as it began. "Of course I am."

"Maybe revenge is a factor," I allowed slowly after a few moments of digesting the idea. "But, that's not necessarily a bad thing…."

"I didn't say it was. In fact, I find it rather – encouraging."

That was an interesting word choice. I arched a brow reflexively. "Encouraging?"

He nodded minimally. "Everything's so quaint; I was beginning to fear a rather boring stay. How nice it is to find a source of entertainment."

I shifted slightly, uncertain how to take that. A part of me, some little voice in my head, told me I should be careful, should withdraw while I still could, but it was hard to hear, hard to focus on over the tingle itching along the insides of my thighs and the expectant, simmering heat knotting low in my belly. "I'll make a note to dig out the checkers board for you."

He snorted, "Oh goody."

My mouth twitched, started to turn into a smirk, then, uncertain, stopped as I took a step back, then another, progressing slowly across the room until I felt the backs of my boots hit the edge of my bed. "Like I said, I try to please."

His eyes followed me as I sank down onto my bed, and even when I turned over a moment later, breaking the connection, I could feel them on me: heavy, hot, insistent….

"I'm going to enjoy putting that to the test."

I wriggled my way beneath my mess of blankets as noisily as possible, trying to pretend I hadn't heard him even though, of course, I had, and playing like every fiber in of my body wasn't hoping he'd make it sooner, rather than later.

~.~

Sleep, unsurprisingly, was a long time coming. It wasn't until the sky beyond the windows began it's daily shift from midnight black to murky gray that I finally stopped jerking every time I heard a noise behind me, that I finally stopped feeling a pair of strange, slitted eyes on me like a physical weight, and at last gave into the blessed release of sleep. I went, it felt like, from staring at the insides of my eyelids, tense and uncomfortable, one second, to lazy, weak-limbed and blinking blurrily up at the ceiling the next.

Had I dreamed? The peeling, water-stained ceiling slowly swam into focus as I tried to play my memory back, tried to pull up details, but nothing came and I allowed myself instead to sink deeper in my nest of blankets and pillows (I didn't sleep in a bed in the traditional sense; no mattress, no frame, it was more a bowl of cushions – stolen from countless couches and armchairs – and a half-dozen or so blankets), thinking how nice and warm it was wrapped up like this. Perhaps I could sleep a little longer. No one would care surely. It wasn't like I had patrols or anything today, being part of a raiding party pretty much allowed one a lot of-

My eyes, beginning to drift closed again, snapped open.

The raiding party, the terrible noise, finding Wesker and bringing him home – Wesker with the silk smooth voice and red-cat eyes and who caressed my skin like he was contemplating how it might taste….

The memories rushed back from where they'd settled during sleep and my last thoughts of a lazy, late lie in disappeared as I bolted upright, sending blankets flying as I hurriedly scanned around.

But the room was quiet and still save my rushed breathing and the distant, muted song of a morning bird. Wesker was gone, I was alone.

My mind immediately began to whirl with possibilities: where Wesker was, what he was doing…whether or not he and Daryl had gotten into a fistfight yet….

I thrashed like a landed fish and finished freeing myself from my blankets and half ran, half tripped into my room's adjoining bathroom, swiping at my face and hair with hasty hands. I spared a glance for my reflection in the cracked mirror and plucked a rag from the sink, plunging it into a bucket of cold river water and wringing away the excess before rubbing it over my face, neck and hands.

It wasn't as nice as a shower (and we had rigged a rather primitive one together down on the main floor in a room closest to the river itself), but it would do until it was my turn for said again. Yes, that was on a rotation as well – everything was about balance for us at the mill.

Ditching the rag and trying to ignore the chill of the cool water drying on my skin, I changed quickly (given that I didn't have a lot of clothes, the act was rather superfluous; a pair of jeans for a pair of jeans, a long-sleeved undershirt for an almost exact twin, clean underwear, and the same boots and vest I wore everyday) and abandoned the room. Most of the rooms had already been abandoned, but I caught a few folks still about and snippets of their activities reached my ears as I marched past on my way to the stairwell – a loud snore here, a soft conversation there – then I was on the stairs and headed down.

The main floor was noisier, sounds of life prominent even before I rounded the corner. There was a laugh, a soft odd squeaking, the soft buzz of chatter, and underneath it all the clink and scrape of silverware against porcelain.

Bill was the one who spotted me first, waving a heavy silver ladle at me as he bellowed a cheery, "Morning, sleepy! You're just in time for breakfast." He tapped his ladle against a big pot resting atop the grill before him with the sharp clang of metal on metal.

"That's me," I replied, a small smile pulling at my mouth. "The master of regrettable timing."

Bill laughed and lifted the lid off his pot, turning back to the brewing contents and plucking up a bowl – presumably for me. Joy.

Sarah's head popped over the back of the ratty couch, arms dangling down of the cushions. A squishy, yellow ball was clamped in one of her little hands. "It's not so bad," she said, swiping at the strands of red hanging in her face impatiently. "It's kinda like cough medicine. If you plug your nose like this-" she pinched her nose with her forefinger and thumb, "-dis not tho bad."

I smiled. "I'll keep that in mind."

A few feet away, Christy gave me a friendly wave from where she was seated at a table; bowl of murky root-water in front of her, hand pressed her mouth as she chewed slowly and swallowed. Sitting with her was another Purduvian, a man who was playing more with his food than eating it.

Phil was a handsome man, in a sculpted, slightly plastic Ken doll sort of way; and worse, he knew it. His attitude had a tendency to grate on my nerves, and I avoided him at all possible for it, but he and Christy had known each other before (her sister's boyfriend's cousin's best friend or something to that ridiculous affect) and some sort of solidarity kept them on friendly terms. And since Christy was important to me (Daryl was my best friend, yes, but sometimes a woman just wanted to talk to another woman) I tolerated him in those instances when ignoring wasn't an option.

He jerked his head benignly at me. I nodded back vaguely.

"Bon appétit," Bill crowed winningly, banging a spoon into a now full and steaming bowl and holding it out to me.

I hesitated, but could think of no polite way of refusing, and slowly reached out to take it, wrapping my hands around the porcelain carefully. At the very least the heat of it could keep my hands warm, I supposed.

"What about our new arrival?" I questioned, hoping to distract when Bill raised his eyebrows expectantly, obviously waiting for me dig in. "Has he been down for a bowl?"

Phil snorted over his bowl and muttered something to himself.

I couldn't hear it, but given the tone – and the reproachful look Christy was shooting him, and the way Bill's mouth thinned and all but disappeared beneath his moustache – I could guess.

"What happened?" I looked between them, and even glanced over at Sarah, but she'd disappeared behind the couch.

"Nothing," Bill said after a moment.

Phil dropped his spoon and pushed his bowl away sharply, "Yeah, nothing. Because all that fucking perv wanted to do was watch."

"That's a little harsh," Christy cut in quickly. "But…it was a little weird."

I looked at Bill pleadingly. "Out with it. Whatever happened, just tell me. Please."

Bill hesitated, then shrugged his plaid-covered shoulders. "Nothing. He came down, and I offered him breakfast, but he didn't want anyway."

Not that anyone could blame Wesker for that, but I wisely restrained myself from pointing that out. "And?"

"And nothing. He didn't eat, didn't sit, he didn't even talk. He just stood…and watched."

"Then he left," Christy added.

I started to ask where he'd gone, but was interrupted by Sarah.

"Spade doesn't like him. He hid while he was here, and he still won't come out."

I realized then what the girl was up to there behind the couch. She was trying to coax the dog out from under it. I recalled, unbidden, the animal's odd behavior the previous day – the way he'd whined and cried and slunk away from me as if he'd expected to be struck.

I couldn't explain it. But I tried to wave it off with humor anyway. "Well, Spade's never been the bravest dog. Remember the gecko?"

A scrawny little lizard had once found its way into the mill and during his initial, curious inspection it had leapt, and stuck, square between Spade's eyes. After he'd managed to shake it off, he'd spent the remainder of the day alternatively running away and hiding until we'd been able to catch and kill the skittering little bastard.

Rin Tin-Tin, Spade was not.

Sarah giggled a little and there was a little squeak as she squeezed Spade's ball again.

Leaving her to it, I looked at the others. "I'll go find him, make sure everything's – copacetic." I went to put my bowl down, but was stopped by Bill vigorously shaking his head.

"Oh no, that can wait. You were off with that guy last night and skipped on dinner. You have to eat." He banged his ladle against his pot again and nodded at my bowl. "Go. Have a seat. Show me a clean bowl and then you can go play."

Bill – giving moms a run for their money since the end of the world.

~.~

By the time I finished choking down breakfast – Sarah had lied, the little devil, holding one's breath did not help – the main floor was filling up again. The Morning patrol was switching off with a fresh team, and the last of the late risers were finally coming down from their rooms and getting in line for chow.

All of them, I thought, were hoping Bill would run out of root juice before he got to them, but no such luck.

Daryl turned up, a heavy black garbage bag in one hand, a pair of thick leather gloves in the other. He held them both out to me, reminding me with a smug grin that it was my turn to check the rat traps.

It wasn't a pleasant task, but I could at least search for Wesker – who had not made a reappearance thus far – while making the rounds.

We traded; my empty bowl for his bag and gloves, and I left the growing crowd behind without a backward glance.

~.~

The first two traps held a small, dust colored mouse each. In the third, which was located in the second floor store room, was a bony, sad looking squirrel.

None of them would provide much meat, but protein was protein.

I dropped the garbage bag out of the way and got down on the floor, worming my way carefully underneath the broken piece of machinery the trap was crammed behind. I reached out, tapped the downed animal sharply to make sure it was really dead, then carefully began to work the carcass out of the trap. It was tricky, in this enclosed space, to pry the trap open again. I kept bumping my elbows, and jabbing my shoulder on a sharp corner of metal.

Frustrated, sweating, and cursing low under my breath I didn't realize I was no longer alone until I was suddenly moving – belly scraping over the floor, head and shoulders popping out from under the machine.

I struggled instinctively, throwing back an elbow as I was jerked upward, hoping to knock my unknown assailant away – at that point I wouldn't have cared if it had been Daryl, nobody sneaked up on and manhandled me – but I failed. My elbow was caught in a firm hold and jammed up against the small of my back as I was hauled backward. I collided with something hard; I swung my free arm and a dark blur streaked into my field of vision on the right. Next thing I knew my right arm was pinned in front of me, a large, strong hand holding it trapped by the wrist.

Wesker.

The truth hit me like a train.

Wesker had grabbed me, was holding me, had me pressed tightly against him.

"What – are – you – doing?" I hissed, giving another valiant struggle.

A struggle he stopped easily. Like a constricting snake, his tightened down on me, holding me harder as he chuckled.

"You really should pay more attention. Allowing someone to get behind you…so very sloppy."

I felt his breath against my cheek, the back of my ear…something soft and warm brushed against my skin – his lips. My heart stopped and I became deeply aware of my left arm – the arm trapped between us, pressed against my back…and his belly.

It had hurt just seconds before, muscles protesting the unnatural position, but now I could only think of him…and what he felt like. How I felt against him.

He was so strong, his stomach and chest hard and unyielding. Something smooth and cool was pressing into my arm, down near my elbow – his belt buckle.

My brain seemed to short circuit, zeroing in on that detail above all the others, and leaving me helpless. I could only stand there, trapped, unable to speak, heart hammering, breath shallow. I was terrified…or excited, or both. Everything was rushing around inside me so fast I couldn't separate it out to know for sure.

Wesker shifted, and the firm column on his leg pressed against the slender, softness of mine. A sound shuddered out of me, something breathless and instinctual, and wildly embarrassing when his fingers flexed and tightened on my wrist and his laugh feathered over my skin again. And it only got worse when he used his free hand to reach between us and his knuckles brushed along my spine. The fabric of my shirt twitched, dragging upward and I suddenly couldn't hear anything – nothing but the pounding of my own blood in my ears. His fingertips swept over my bared skin and my body shuddered. There was a soft hiss, the rasp of moving metal….then I was seeing my own face, flushed with hooded eyes and trembling lips, reflected in the gleaming blade of a hunting knife.

My hunting knife I realized. Wesker had pulled it from the sheath at my waist and was now holding it before my face, tilting the blade until I could see not only my face, but his, half-visible, half hidden just above and behind mine. The pupil of the one eye of his that I could see was wide and dilated, but the iris was glowing – feral and alive. One corner of his mouth was turned up and I watched it, that mouth, as he spoke.

"It's handsome weapon," he murmured and I saw him shift, leaning toward our joined reflection, then I felt the whisper of his mouth against my ear once more. "And while I can admire your choice to weld it, I just don't believe such a fine blade should be in the possession of someone who can't keep it safe." His voice, and the knife, lowered. "I'll keep it. Until you're ready to take it back." He used his grip on my wrist to thrust me away, spinning me toward the machine he'd pulled me out from under. I collided with it, catching myself just in time to keep from sprawling over it.

Livid, alive with adrenaline and feelings I didn't want, didn't understand, I glared back over my shoulder.

Wesker stood tall, confident…smug. He wiggled the knife between his fingers in challenge and whipped it down suddenly, the blade sticking into the floor a good two inches with a hollow _thunk_. "Prove you deserve it." He rolled his shoulders and waited.

I gritted my teeth, lowered my chin, and slowly took off my gloves.

~.~

I didn't get my knife back. And I didn't get it back the next day, or the day after. I did get bruises: purple, black, red, yellow and green, shaped like long fingers and boot heels. I also got cuts and scrapes, especially on my hands, from where I swiped at my knife, trying to grab it and pull it free. I never won, but I kept going back.

Wesker didn't show mercy, didn't give in, and didn't break a sweat. The only time I got close to my knife was when he wanted me to – when he really wanted to play.  
I didn't tell anyone what was going on, how I was spending my afternoons, but they knew. They had to. Wesker and I disappeared for hours at a time, and I returned with bruises, grunting and gasping in pain. They had to wonder….

Daryl was the one who finally said something; storming into my room one night as I shuffled about trying to avoid aggravating my newest and most painful welts.

He demanded that it stop, that I see what Wesker was doing to me as proof of his intentions – intentions of hurting, killing, us all.

I told him it wasn't like that, that everything that was happening was because I wanted it. That I was willingly participating.

Daryl shook his head at that, looking disgusted. He didn't believe it, wouldn't believe it. His friend he said, the woman he knew, wouldn't act like some dumb whore. He put his hands on me, demanded I see the truth, before it came down my head.

I wrenched free, slapped him, told him to get out.

My door had been closed, no one had seen, or heard,…but for a moment, as Daryl slammed his way out, I swore I felt like eyes were on me.

Eyes like fire. Watching. Judging.


	7. Chapter 7

A/n's: So. Here we are. Chapter 7. I've had this chapter in mind since the very beginning, since before the beginning even, and now, finally, here it is. I do hope you like it – I struggled quiet a lot to get the feeling just where I wanted it. *crosses fingers*

Now, I realize this chapter is rather shorter than what you've become accustomed to, but that's on purpose. Considering what the bulk of this chapter is about, well, I know some people don't care for it. This way folks of that inclination can just skip to the end and they won't miss too awful much. (There are some clues in this chapter that they will miss, but hey, you can't have it both ways.) That said – have a bonus feature! A song that I listened to on repeat while writing this chapter (its soundtrack if you will): Sing It Back by Moloko. Link - http:/ youtube .com/watch?v=b9_OfgmGlDs (Be sure to take the spaces out there at the beginning of the link.)

All right, enough babbling from me. Enjoy! And onto the warnings!

Warnings: *drumroll*…Violence (references to it anyway), and…(crap, I just realized there was no swearing what so ever this chapter! Fuck. Hell. Damn. There, now we're good), and...sex (there I said it).

* * *

Chapter Seven

The Devil

"_With Capricorn as its ruling sign, this is a card about ambitions; it is also synonymous with temptation and addiction. As a person, The Devil can stand for a man of money or erotic power, aggressive, controlling, or just persuasive – a powerful man who is hard to resist. The important thing to remember, however, is that any chain is freely worn. In most cases, you are enslaved only because you allow it."_

_-Thirteen, Aeclectic Tarot_

Time passed and the world darkened, outside with the setting of the sun, and inside as I traded the faint, yellowed glow of the ceiling light for the flickering, warm red-orange of candles. I didn't light candles often, the pretty, soft-scented commercial variety that I enjoyed were an increasingly rare commodity, but tonight I needed them. They were comforting, soothing,…relaxing.

I could see by their light, and hide in their shadows. The other wouldn't tempt the dark; I would be left alone to tend my wounds in privacy.

The physical was easy enough. The bruises, four long smudges and a squashed blue-black dot – four fingers and a thumb – on both my arms just above the elbows, while annoying, were not life threatening. I didn't believe Daryl had meant to hurt me. I had never known him to be the type to put bruises on a woman – for any reason.

But…there they were; the proof written in my skin.

And he'd done it in anger, in frustration.

I tugged my sleeves down again, and turned to the window and watched the trees beyond as their branches swayed, their leaves flashing silver, then black, then silver again as they passed under the face of the moon. There was no pattern, no rhythm or reason to the movement other than the whim of the night breezes, but watching them, just like lighting the candles, was some how calming.

I replayed the moment with Daryl over and over in my mind. I was upset by it, perhaps to some degree even horrified by it, but I couldn't make myself regret it. I was sad it had come to that, but I wasn't sorry…confused, but not apologetic.

When had it come to that, I wondered. When had it come down to him or me? Him or…_him_?

Him. Wesker.

As I thought of him, the tingle returned, the feeling of being watched, of being studied, moving along my spine. I was imagining it, surely. I had been alone, was alone…but Daryl hadn't closed the door behind him when he'd left.

I looked back, regarded the dark outside my door, and said softly, "You're there…aren't you?"

There was silence, and stillness, for an interminable amount of time, then the night moved, and he was there.

I had guessed it, known it, but it was still surprising, still shocking, to see him melt from the black and frame himself in my doorway, tall, dark, imposing. The candle light played over the angles of his face, dappling it half-light, half-shadow, and it flashed in his eyes.

Fire within, fire without.

He was at once man and demon, terrifying and wondrous, thrilling and frightening. I turned back to the window cowardly, trying to hide…but I could still see him, a soft blur of red and black in the glass.

"Candles," his voice reached out to me, winding around my senses like silk. "How romantic."

I wrapped my arms around myself, caught myself starting to rub my arms, and stopped. "How peaceful," I corrected gently. "Restive."

"Fire is dangerous…unpredictable."

"I enjoy them."

"That doesn't surprise me." He sounded amused. I found myself wondering if he was smirking. "But I am curious as to why you're here with them, hiding in the dark, when everyone else is doing everything they can to avoid it."

I took a deep breath, let it out. "I'm not afraid of the dark."

"What a coincidence - neither am I."

I didn't hear him move, but he must have, because next thing I knew the door was closing, the lock sliding into place with a noise like a gunshot.

Trapped; as easy as that.

I had the sense to be afraid, but not the smarts to consider fleeing. Perhaps I knew it would be futile,…or maybe, the truth was I didn't want to escape.

"Why would you?" I asked him softly, trying to tease, trying to sound brave. "You can see in the dark. Can't you?"

Stealth was once again his ally, and my enemy. He spoke, and he wasn't across the room as I'd judged, but _here_, with me, next to me – on me – crowding in, and taking over.

"I see _everything_," he told me, his voice in my ear, his breath hot on my skin as his fingers curled around my arms.

There was a flash of us in the window – two pale silhouettes blending together in the warped glass – and then he was forcing me around, using his great strength make me look at him and I could see nothing but him; nothing but those eyes, burning, scorching over my face.

Before I knew what I was doing, I was reaching up, hands trembling with the desire, the need, to touch him. The light was dancing over his face; and I itched to follow its flickering process with my fingers, to dip my lips into the dark hollow under his jaw.

He caught one hand with his own, his fingers slipping under the cuff of my sleeve, the fabric bunching as he moved his hand upward, but he allowed the other to pass and quivering, uncertain, I touched him. Just my fingertips at first, feathering quickly along the curve of his cheek…then, slowly, more, and then more, until finally the whole of my palm was cupping his jaw, fingers splaying, marveling at the warmth of his skin, the rasp of stubble against mine-

-and my pinky slipped into something cool, and wet, under his ear.

Startled, my hand tipped, pulling back instinctively, but before I could look, before I could do more than make an odd, strangled noise of confusion, Wesker was interrupting me – ripping at my sleeve, pulling it out of his way with barely restrained violence so he could pass his fingers over the indigo stains Daryl's hard, angry grip had branded into my skin.

His eyes snapped up, bored into mine, and though I wanted to pull away, wanted to hide my sores from his gaze once more, I couldn't. His burning stare, and the iron grip he held me in, kept me still.

"He did this." His voice was flat, and cold – and more dangerous than I'd ever heard. "Your '_friend_.'"

I struggled to reply, stricken by the quick-silver burst fear trembling up my spine. How had he known? I didn't understand, had he….and then his words played back in my head with a sharp jolt of clarity.

_"I see everything."_

I had felt, as Daryl had stormed away, like I was being watched. I had thought, had stupidly believed, I was imagining it….

"But you were here, weren't you?" I murmured up at him, feeling suddenly weak, as if the revelation and the flood of emotion that went with it were too much for my body to handle. I felt stupid for not realizing, felt shamed that he had seen such weakness, and felt, somehow, oddly relieved that his presence hadn't just been all in my head. "It wasn't just me…."

"He had no right," Wesker hissed in that voice like ice, silencing my whispering sharply as he wound his fingers around my arm, hiding Daryl's possession beneath his touch.

I started to shake my head, "He didn't mean to. He was angry…and confused…."

He caught my chin with his free palm, cupping my jaw, forcing my head still so he could again force my gaze to meet his – my eyes against his haunting red ones. "He was afraid."

I watched him, watching me, and could do nothing else but breathe my agreement. "Yes."

Slowly, after a long, frozen moment, his head tipped, cocking a fraction of an inch, and his fingers tightened on my chin, coaxing my head back as he unexpectedly shifted closer. "Are_ you_ afraid?"

He had asked that of me before – that very question – and I found, with little thought, that my answer was exactly as it had been before.

Yes. Unequivocally, yes.

But I couldn't bring myself to admit it, refused to.

"Should I be?" I found myself whispering instead as I gently, carefully, allowed my fingers to rest against his cheek again.

A muscle in his jaw jerked beneath my palm and I felt him tense a mere breath before he moved. "Yes," the word slipped past his lips easily, as smooth and confident as the way he leaned in to brush those same lips against the corner of my mouth.

I jerked; a rapid, involuntary tremor racing through me. Was I trying to pull away, or trying to push closer? I couldn't be sure, couldn't tell, and either way it didn't seem to matter. He kept his grip on my chin, using the pressure to angle me how he wanted, allowing him the access he needed to run that hot, insistent mouth across my cheek and up to the sensitive shell of my ear.

"You should be."

My fingers twitched, flattened and splayed, and daringly pushed back, threading into the cool, pale silk of his hair. "Why?" I gasped, desperate to know, needing….more.

More explanation, more of him, more of his mouth.

Distantly, I felt him release my arm, felt that hand drop down to my hip, felt those fingers curl into the fabric of my jeans, the skin underneath.

"I'm going to take you, from you, over-" the hand on my hip pulled, tugging until I moved and made contact with him; hip to hip, thigh to thigh, "-and over."

My blood rushed, pounding through my veins in time to the wild beating of my heart, and began to pool somewhere low in my belly, somewhere between my thighs. My hold on his hair tightened unconsciously, crushing the strands between my fingers, trying to pull him away…and closer. Both.

"Oh, God, please…" I pleaded aloud without realizing, trying to understand, trying to figure out what I wanted – what I needed to do.

"No." He bit the word, I could feel his teeth graze my skin and my prayer became a moan. "Not Him." His mouth was on the move again, slipping downward and leaving a searing trail of tingling skin in its wake. "Me." His lips brushed mine. "Only mine."

And his mouth fastened over my own.

Heat, power, danger,…fear, they all crashed into me, through me with the hard possession of his mouth. But I couldn't think over them, didn't have time to dwell – Wesker knew what he wanted, and how to get it, and I couldn't only react to the shift and slant of his lips, the silent, physical command that had me parting for him instinctively – eagerly.

His tongue swept over my lower lip – _his_ – past my teeth - _only his_ – and finally – _yes_ - tangled with my own.

The taste of him was overwhelming – dark and raw and feral…and somehow familiar. It swept into my blood like a drug and inhibitions, worries, fears melted away under the caress of his hands, the flick of his tongue, the nip of his teeth.

I had only to feel, taste – to give…and take.

He pushed, I pulled. I fumbled with his belt, he savaged my shirt. Somehow we found the floor, and skin met skin.

His mouth rounded the curve of my breast, dragged along my ribs – I ran my fingers the length of his spine, nibbled at the pulse beating strong in his neck. Cool air bathed over my thighs and I realized suddenly that my jeans were gone – how or when I wasn't sure…and I didn't care.

I pushed hastily at his pants, wanting them gone, wanting him as bare to my hands, my eyes…my body, as I was to him. My fingers collided with something hard and cool and impatiently I tugged on it, just wanting it out of the way, and it came free in my hand. He made a sound, a low rumble in the back of his throat as his tongue made a wet, warm, foray into my belly button and I arched in response, hips lifting off the floor. I went to toss the unwanted object away, I didn't care, but paused – stopped – when I saw it glint in the candlelight.

I stared at it, unrecognizing, then it hit me. My knife – that's what I was holding in my hand.  
I'd gotten my knife back.

My laugh was breathless, wildly pleased…and very short. Wesker lifted, his torso sliding against mine, and captured my mouth with his again. I tightened on the blade, just for a moment, and then I released it, tossing it away in favor of touching him, in favor of wrapping my arms around him and holding on as he brushed his fingers along my thighs, coaxing them to part wider…and wider…until suddenly his fingers were gone and his body was slipping into their place. He pushed against me, into me, until my body gave under his demands and he was buried deep inside.

I didn't have time to think, to react beyond a primal cry of pleasure, before he was moving. Withdrawing, pulling away, and driving home again with a snap of his hips.

Over, and over, and over again until there was nothing – no sound, no light, no air. No him, and no me.

Just pleasure…and blissful oblivion.

~.~

I was floating. Floating on a dark, silver-edged cloud, content, happy just to drift.

My arms had slid from around him, limp, to lie on the floor. The carpet tickled against my skin, but I couldn't find the strength to lift them and encircle him again. Nor, I discovered, could I find my voice. I wanted to tell him not to move – not ever to move. He was heavy, yes. But I didn't care. With my eyes closed and his body fitted against mine, I could count the beats of his heart, could reveal in the fact that it was pounding as wildly as my own.

Eventually, he did move though, shifting slowly, and lazily turning his lips into my neck. "Tell me how you feel," he demanded in that way of his as he began to nibble.

"Warm." Fresh desire began to tingle within me. "I-" My breath caught on a fast, hot shudder.

He lifted his head, traced my parted lips with his tongue. "Tell me how I make you feel."

My fingers curled into the short, scratchy fibers of the carpet. "Helpless." And then they went lax. "Strong." My hands moved from the carpet, found him again, gripped at his forearms.

"I'm going to take you again." And his mouth crushed to mine in a wrenching kiss that stole my breath – and rocked my soul.

I could taste the power building in him. It should have frightened me, probably would have if I hadn't felt its twin rising up within me.

My eyes opened and met his as I lifted my arms and rose to meet him.

~.~

_I was six. I was sitting with my father on the shaded front stoop of our home. He was trying to teach me how to play Jacks._

"_The trick-" he told me as he scattered the small metal pieces and took up the ball, "-is to keep your eye on the jacks."_

_The hard rubber ball thwacked against the wood and his hand darted out, deftly scooping up one member of the silver pile, and back again to catch the ball. He opened his palm and showed them both to me._

"_Easy as that," he smiled._

_I looked at him uncertainly._

"_I'll show you again."_

_He bounced the ball again, stretched forth his hand and snagged two of the shining metal stars before returning to catch it._

_Threes, and then fours….but on fives his finger knocked a jack, sending it spinning away from his grasp. The ball bounced and started to roll away. He caught it with a shrug._

_He returned his stolen jacks to the pile and held the ball out to me._

_"Your turn."_

_I stared at it, certain I would fail where he had succeeded._

_He said my name, insistent, pushing the ball closer._

_I didn't move._

_Again he said my name…but it wasn't my father's voice. It had gone shrill, and high-_

-my eyes snapped open and I watched Sarah's mouth move in time to the sound of my name.

"Wake up!" She begged. "Please!" She began to shake me.

My world bounced and rolled and I finally came awake enough to wave her off as my stomach turned nauseously. "Sarah…stop. I'm up – what do you-"

She stopped shaking, and started pulling instead. "Hurry," she whimpered, tugging on me. "We can't find Daryl."


	8. Chapter 8

A/n's: Finally, here you be – Chapter 8! Sorry it took so long. Please note, no "fin" at the end, so no, this is not the last chapter. ;) Never fear, there are more to come.

A quick shout out to new reviews, readers, and favorite-ers (and I did note something of an upswing after the last chapter; lol, the Wesker-smut compels you!): You guys rock! Thank so much for your time. 3

Warnings: Swearing, gore, sexual references, violence, death.

* * *

Chapter Eight

The Tower

"_No card scares a Tarot reader like the Tower – it is one of the clearest cards when it comes to meaning. False structures, false institutions, false beliefs are going to come tumbling down, suddenly, violently and all at once. Shaken up, torn down, blown asunder. And the only thing to soften the blow is the assurance that it is for the best. Nothing built on a lie, on falsehoods, can remain standing for long. It is not going to be pleasant or painless or easy, but it will be for the best."_

_-Thirteen, Aeclectic Tarot_

My first response, if I was completely honest with myself, was not the mind-numbing fear Sarah seemed to be gripped with. Nor anything even remotely like it. Truly, I was more annoyed than anything else. Warm and sleepy, I wanted to just lay there.

Plus, if I had to guess, it was probable that Daryl had just found himself some quiet hidey to hole up in while he stewed over our "discussion" from the night before. After all, it's what I'd done – at least until Wesker had shown up.

Wesker….I turned my head, looking though I didn't really expect to find him.

The space beside me was, indeed, empty and cool.

I wasn't surprised; somehow he didn't strike me as the type, but still...

I passed my hand over the vacant cushions and slowly sat up, deliciously aching muscles – muscles in deep, intimate places Wesker had spent the better part of the night, and the wee hours of the morning, exploring – protesting as I held a blanket to my naked chest and leaned back against the wall.

I rubbed one blurry eye and used the other to look around for my clothes. "Your certain Daryl's missing?"

Sarah nodded vigorously. "He was supposed to go on patrol with Phil, but Phil couldn't find him, so they-"

"They?"

"Andrew and Kyle, they helped Phil look. But Daryl wasn't in his room or anywhere else. He really is missing!"

Even with just one eye I could see she really was terrified and I dropped my fist from my eye to give a tendril of burgundy hair a playful little tug. "I'm sure he's here, Sarah. Safe and sound. He probably just wanted to be alone for a bit and lost track of time."

She fixed me with a furrowed look. "Why would he want to be alone?"

I hesitated. "It's adult stuff, Scout."

"It's because you were fighting, isn't it?"

My mouth snapped shut and she looked suddenly uncertain, flushing with color.

"I heard you. Everybody did."

The wince escaped before I could stop it. "Everybody?"

"Well, maybe not _everybody_," Sarah allowed, looking for a moment sympathetic to my discomfort. "But they've been talking about it." Then her expression melted into something carefully curious. "Is it true you like Wesker more than Daryl?"

That caught me off guard. Not so much that our names were being whispered by the others – gossip was as rare a treat as red meat around here – but that Sarah was so direct in questioning me about it.

I really had to stop underestimating her.

"It's not so much that I like one more than the other…" I tried.

"But you do like him," Sarah interjected pointedly. "Like, like-like. And you don't Daryl."

'Like-like' wasn't quite the term I'd have used, but for the intents of a conversation with an eleven-year-old….

"Yes," I replied softly, fingers flexing and tightening unconsciously at the blanket I still clutched to my breast.

Her head tipped. "Daryl like-likes you."

I felt my shoulders slump as if something heavy had suddenly taken roost upon them, and was pressing them back against the cold, hard wall. "I know."

Sarah looked at me, her pale eyes sliding over my bare shoulders and taking in the rumpled, empty space beside me. For a moment her little shoulders dipped as well. "Adult stuff sounds complicated," she admitted sadly.

I could only nod.

For a moment neither of us said anything, a woman and a girl each to her own thoughts, then Sarah said, "But we should still find Daryl. Phil needs him for patrol – it wouldn't be fair to ask someone else to do it."

I allowed the corner of my mouth to turn up. "True."

She started to push up from the kneeling position she'd taken beside my bed and I said, "Get Phil, and the twins. Carl…and Bill."

"He's making breakfast," Sarah pointed out.

I paused, considering. "Ask, nicely, if Amy will cover for him. I'd really like Bill."

"Okay." She started for the door, then suddenly turned back. "Do you want me to get Wesker too?"

Wesker and Daryl together…I tried to imagine what that confrontation would be like – Daryl, proud and hurt, against Wesker, cool and dangerous - and shook my head. "No, I don't think that'll be necessary. Just get the others, have them meet me down on the main floor."

Sarah nodded, confirmed my request with another "okay" and then disappeared, closing my door behind her.

I waited several beats to see if she was going to come barging back in with more questions, then, when satisfied that she was really off and away, slowly stood and let the blanket fall away as I eased into movement and began cataloging the various twinges and pulls ticking through my body.

None of them really hurt. In fact, as I took in the soft green-yellow smudges along my thighs and hips I found myself smirking, almost…pleased by the proof of Wesker's possession. The muscles low in my belly and high between my thighs were oddly cramped, but that too was more of a pleasant reminder than an irritation. Perhaps that was odd, or wrong, or even morbid, but I couldn't help myself. I'd enjoyed myself. A girl was allowed, wasn't she?

Amused, and fighting back the increasing urge to laugh, I hunted for my clothes, and finally found them, not on the floor in a hasty, passion induced pile I'd imagined, but instead on the desk, in a neat, folded stack. And resting on top, cradled in the fabric of my shirt, was my knife.

Somehow I doubted that Sarah was responsible and so lingered for a moment, pleased, and yes, slightly touched that Wesker had even thought to bother. I trailed my fingers over the grip of my knife, proud that it was mine and that he had left it for me. It wasn't, certainly, the way I'd imagined regaining it, but was, in its own way, fitting.

As different as we were, we'd found common ground. As strong as he was, I too had strength. I was deserving; and not just in my eyes, but his as well. It, of course, might just have been because of the sex, but I didn't think so. He seemed smarter than that, stronger than to let just a physical act get the better of him….

I picked up the knife, curling my fingers around the familiar handle.

I hoped anyway.

I allowed myself to hold the knife a moment longer, then firmly put it aside so I could get dressed. I discovered as I began to pull on my shirt – and I had to dig out a new one of those besides as Wesker had torn the other up the side – a sharp pain in my shoulder that had me ducking into the bathroom to look in the mirror. I found a dark, horseshoe shaped bruise waiting for me.

I couldn't actually remember when exactly Wesker had bitten me; perhaps it had been during that first, fast, frantic coupling on the floor by the window, or maybe it had this morning when we'd laid together and watched the sky dissolve into soft golds and reds and he'd reached for me without a word, slipping between my thighs as I'd arched and gasped against him, or maybe it had been neither, but instead some time in between….

Whenever…whichever, the pain faded as I realized what it was and instead I found myself tickled by its existence. After I finished dressing I could feel it rubbing against the fabric of my shirt like a reminder, a promise…a warning. My own private talisman – with any luck it'd help me get through what was inevitably bound to be a painful reunion with Daryl.

With a deep breath I tied on my boots and slipped my knife into its sheath before heading downstairs.

~.~

Bill, Carl, and Phil were already waiting by the time I arrived, and Amy stood before the old grill, slowly stirring a pot from which the familiar stagnant scents of boiled root were wafting. The twins, however, were no where to be seen.

Eyebrows lifting, I asked. "Where's Andrew and Kyle?"

"Outside," Phil intoned, soundly slightly bored. "Looking to see if Daryl decided to go for a stroll."

I could have been angry, or frustrated, by the blatant dismissal of my request for them to be present – but instead, I was actually more bemused, tipping my head as I sighed. "Oh good, that'll save time. That's what I was going to ask them to do anyway."

Carl had his old baseball cap in his hands and was wringing it anxiously, bending the bill all out of shape as he asked, "Do you really think Daryl's missing?"

I moved close enough to pluck the poor abused cap from his hands, reshaping it as I replied, "No-" I heard Phil snort. I ignored him. "I'm sure he's about somewhere, probably sleeping if I know him." I handed Carl his hat back (he smiled sheepishly and pulled it down over his hears) and nodded at the trio of men. "Phil, Carl – you two take one side, Bill and I will take the other."

"Aye, aye, oh fearless leader," Phil muttered dryly as he pushed off the table he'd been leaning against. "But which way shall we take – left or right?"

I tried to resist the urge, but inevitably gave in to temptation and instead said sweetly, "Does it matter? You can't fuck up any worse on one than the other."

Carl's eyes widened, making him look wildly uncomfortable, while Bill just sighed and warned, "Play nice children, or it's to bed with no dessert."

"Whatever." Phil rolled his eyes and gestured at Carl before turning on his heel and heading off toward the far stairwell.

As they moved out of earshot Bill shot me a side-long look. "Why not just challenge him to two-by-fours at dawn and be done with it?"

I inclined my head in the direction of the second stairwell and we started to walk together. "One of these days you're going to have to pry my teeth from around his throat."

He chuckled and reached for the door, "You better keep your strength up then – let's find Daryl quick so we can get back down for breakfast."

I was only slightly shamed by my immediate hope that Daryl would stay missing long enough for the food to run out.

~.~

We worked quickly and in silence broken only by the occasionally call of Daryl's name. I wanted to talk, wanted to confide in Bill and use him as a sounding board - it was why I'd sent Sarah after him, why I'd wanted him specifically – but before I could decide how to begin, before I could work up the necessary nerve, the stairwell door was bursting open and we were both turning on it, surprised and hopeful.

It was Kyle…or maybe Andrew? No, definitely Kyle. The pistol at his hip gave him away; his brother carried the machete.

"We found something." He didn't come to us, but rather stood in the doorway, waiting for us to come to him. He was breathing hard, his eyes wild.

"Daryl?" Bill asked, eyebrows plunging into a deep v-shape.

Kyle looked between us, mouth working uncertainly.

I felt my face pull into an expression similar to Bill's as I turned away from the room I'd been about to check. "Kyle, what is it?"

He shook his head. "You'd better come see."

There were no words as Kyle turned and Bill and I fell in behind him, but I was certain, in the second's glance we shared, that Bill was hearing the same voice in his head that I was.

This couldn't be good.

~.~

Kyle led us downstairs and outside. We moved away from the mill, flowing along the fence that kept us safe toward the river. The water moved fast along this stretch, the current strong, and I could hear it even at this distance…but I didn't get the chance to see it. Kyle stopped us before we got that far.

He paused at a stretch of chain-link that at first glance appeared no different from that which we'd passed, but then he pulled on it and to my horror it gave way, pulling back to reveal a hole – a flap – in our defenses.

"My God," I heard myself whisper. "Someone cut the fence…."

But Kyle shook his head. "I don't think so. Look-" He dropped the fence back into place and waved Bill and I closer. "See this part?" He pointed along the seam where the two edges met. "See how the metal gets thin and stretched on either side of the break?" He looked from me to Bill and back again. "Cutting wouldn't do that. This is more like if someone grabbed a hold-" he demonstrated, curling the fingers of both hands through the metal coils, "-and pulled until the fence _broke_."

I felt myself tense, felt my heart skip a beat.

"But that's steel," Bill's horrified whisper gave voice to the fearful questions rolling inside my own skull. "Who…what could do that?"

Kyle hesitated. "This…isn't all. There's more." He pulled open the fence again and nodded for us to go through. "On the other side."

Bill went through first, I followed, and Kyle brought up the rear, the fence falling closed behind us like a stiff curtain once we were through.

The forest was dense on this side of the mill, the underbrush thick and Kyle took us into it, pushing in deeper. Thirty yards out we hit a wide patch of berry plants whose stems were covered with sharp thorns – stems that were broken wildly, snapped and crushed, thorns that were glistening, still wet with the blood of whatever had crashed through the brambles.

I slowly began to understand – slowly began to fear.

We didn't go through the thicket, but around and it was easy to spot where the runner had emerged from the thorns. There were more damaged plants, a disturbance of the earth as if there had been a struggle…then a thickening trail of blood that lead away from the bramble patch and a over a large fallen tree with lots of sharp, dangerous to negotiate branches. From one sharp point something small and tattered fluttered.

Beyond we got our first glimpse of Andrew, facing us, but not looking at us. His eyes were trained downward, on something I couldn't see until I stepped up onto the trunk of the tree...

Someone cried out. Me? Maybe, I couldn't tell. I could feel myself falling, dropping away – until something, someone, caught me. They squeezed, pulled, and cradled me against their warmth. With one ear, I could hear their heart hammering, with the other I could hear them whispering…gasping.

"Oh dear God, oh dear God..."

The same thing, over and over, was all I heard.

All I could see was Daryl. Daryl lying on his back in the grass, staring up at the sky with dead eyes. Daryl with his bare arms and face horribly lacerated by thorns. Daryl dead with his throat ripped out – with his torso torn open from neck to navel.

I didn't want to believe, I tried to tell myself it wasn't real…but the ground was sticky with his blood, and swarming with thousands of ants busy trying to clean up. Some marched into his body, fought with white maggots for his remains.

There was no way I could imagine that horror, the gore, the writhing sea of insect life…the scent of death that hung in the air.

It was real.

Daryl was dead.

And the last thing I'd done was yell at him.

My eyes burned and I squeezed them shut – the image of Daryl's body didn't waver. It was burned onto the inside of my eyelids.

"Where's the zombie? Did you kill it?"

There was no response. No sound other than the pounding heart beneath my ear. The silence stretched so long I began to wonder if I'd spoke them aloud…or just in my head. Then, finally, Kyle, or maybe Andrew, who knew – who cared – spoke, "I don't think it was one." The voice continued slowly, carefully. "A zombie wouldn't have left the…the body. And it would have consumed everything, not just – pieces."

"If it wasn't a zombie…then what was it?" A new voice rumbled from beneath my ear and I finally realized who was holding me, who was cradling me like a child fearful of the night. "An animal?"

One of the twins again. "Maybe one of those dogs – the dead ones. We thought we got 'em all….maybe not?"

"We'd have seen it by now – heard it," replied the other twin.

Silence crashed around us again. I cracked open my leaking eyes and fixed them away from Daryl, looking for something safe, something that didn't remind me of the way Daryl had looked last night – so angry, so hurt….

The dark bit of something caught on one of the fallen tree's branches flapped a few inches away.

Closer now I could see it for what it was – a piece of fabric. Probably torn from Daryl's clothes as he'd gone over the tree, as he'd tried to escape….except….

Expect Daryl was wearing green – his favorite color – and this piece was…

_Blue._

Dark blue…like the shirt Wesker….

_Something wet on his face…the familiar taste of his kiss…._

Could it...had it been – blood? Daryl's blood? Had Wesker….?

Oh God.

There was a sharp intake of breath – but not from me. From Bill as my fingers dug into his arm, as I spasmed and jerked in his embrace.

"What?" he gasped. "What is it?"

But I didn't reply. There were no words, no way...I tore from his arms, hit the ground, and scrambled up. I tripped over the tree, scrapped my palms on the rough, biting bark, but I didn't stop, didn't give the pain time to register before I was up again – up and running.

The others cried my name, not understanding, wanting me to explain…but I left them behind, crashing through the brush, racing back to the mill.

I had to see…I had to know…I had to find Wesker.

I slammed into the fence, moving too fast to be able to stop properly, and struggled through the gap. The ragged edges pulled at me, scratching and tearing at my clothes, my skin, but I didn't stop. It didn't matter – the pain, the hurt…none of it. Nothing but the dawning horror and my need to have Wesker tell me it wasn't true. That it was all coincidence, that he couldn't possibly have…that he didn't….

I wrenched through the fence and fell again. My gaze spun skyward as I hit the dirt and I saw, above, a silhouette against the azure sky.

Dark…looming…watching from the rooftop.

I stared, and knew, just as I had known last night, that Wesker was staring back.

I clambered to my feet and took off again.

Breakfast was being served, a dozen startled faces were nothing more than a blur as I whizzed by, slamming into the stairwell and taking the steps two at a time. My head was whirling, my heart careening inside my chest; my ears were full with a roaring noise that blocked out everything else…a roaring noise that got louder, and louder until I not only _heard_ it, but _felt_ it. My insides trembled with it, the air vibrated, dust drifted down from the ceiling overhead.

I stopped, realizing then that it wasn't just in my head, wasn't just me. The noise was beyond and growing louder by the second.

I needed to find Wesker, needed…but the noise…what was it?

Torn, struggling with myself I ducked out of the stairwell and into the next hallway. I found myself in the office block where several of my fellow survivors were leaning from their rooms to stare up at the ceiling or to look around at each other bewilderedly. They shot questions at me as I passed, confused, anxious queries that I ignored. No time. I would look, I would see, and then I would find Wesker.

Then, then everything would be okay, then everything would make sense again.

My room was as I left it, but loose objects – on the floor, on the desk – were bouncing, jumping and rattling with the fierce thrumming in the air. I crossed to one of my windows and tilted my head back just in time to see something disappear over the mill's roof.

Something big. Something dark. Something that had moved so fast I hadn't a hope of telling what it was.

At least…until another one showed up.

It soared above the trees at a distance, drawing closer and more distinct as I stared. I wouldn't have thought myself capable of being anymore shocked, anymore confused, but somehow I was.

Somehow I was caught off guard enough to remain frozen, rooted to the spot, and silently watch what was clearly a plane flying toward the mill.

The roaring was the engines, the rotors chopping through the air, and it was so loud because there was more than one…the shape I glimpsed must have been the first one dropping in over the roof, preparing to…land?

Could it be?

I pressed closer to the window, determined to watch this one, determined to have at least one question answered.

It followed the same path as the one before it, but just before it passed out of sight it tipped its wings, flashing me with the symbol inscribed on the black underside – a red and white rosette, almost like a flower – a flower I had seen before; in newspapers, and on television, next to headlines like "Disaster in Raccoon City" and "Pharmaceutical Giant Indicted."

_Umbrella_.

Umbrella had been everywhere, had once been the world's leading supplier of computer technology, medical products and healthcare and had, if one believed the reports, been responsible for the end of the world. It had been said that Umbrella had been playing with a new, designer virus in their own backyard and when it had gotten loose Raccoon City had paid the price. They'd denied it, of course. Their chairman had declared their innocence, claiming the city's death had been caused, not by some mysterious outbreak, but rather some sort of accident at their nuclear power plant…but then cases of a strange, new disease started cropping up across the country, around the world, and eyes had turned again on the corporation, whispers growing louder, questions growing more insistent and Umbrella's chairman-

-an electric flash of memory hit me.

When Wesker had first introduced himself his name had stuck in my craw like a thorn – familiar, but unplaceable. Now I remembered…and I could feel the world slipping out from underneath me with the realization.

Umbrella's head, Umbrella's chairman had been one Albert Wesker.

I blinked, felt myself stagger.

How had I not seen? How could I not have remembered?

The past few days rolled back in my head. I saw him, heard myself talking to him, saw myself touching him…letting him touch me, felt his lips against mine...I saw a wealth of fabric – the parachute we'd carried him in – red and white, just like Umbrella's logo.

Why had I not _seen_?

I stumbled back away from the window and arms like a vice came around me as I collided with someone I hadn't heard enter behind me.

~.~

It wasn't Wesker, though that was my first wild thought. No, this man – and it was certainly a man – was neither tall enough nor broad enough to be him. I could see only his arms – encased in black fabric – wrapped around my chest and waist, and his boots – also black – beside mine. He didn't say a word, just pulled, dragging me backward.

I struggled, and unable to move my arms, snapped my head back. I connected and pain exploded in the back of my skull, but I was rewarded by a grunt from my attacker as well. His grip slipped and I dug my boots into the carpet, shoving back, hoping to trip him. He held on, but we stumbled back and slammed into something hard-

-and with a crack of metal and the hiss of rent air an explosion ripped through the room. Dust and bits of wood popped into the air, shreds of carpet cleaved from the floor.

I felt my assailant jerk, stiffen, and go still as his arms dropped from around me.

I staggered forward and he slumped, falling against the backs of my knees. A few more steps and he hit the floor with a dead _thump_.

I slowly turned, and for a moment just looked.

Untested, I could never say before whether or not my homemade bomb would work; now I had my answer. Like a charm it had gone off, the nails I'd packed into the can had burst outward, shredding everything they'd come in contact with, including the stranger. His light, assault style, gear had provided no protection and taking the brunt of the impact his back was like well tenderized hamburger.

Gingerly, I nudged him with my shoe, then rolled him. His face was covered by a dark, reflective faceplate, but I didn't need to see that. The emblem on his chest – the red and white flower again – was enough.

Umbrella. The chairman had called in the reinforcements.

For what exactly, I couldn't say. But given what they'd done…remembering Daryl, I doubted it was to invite us 'round for tea.

As if to confirm a scream suddenly ripped from the hall.

_Sarah!_

Pushing everything else aside I moved without thought, relying on instinct and nerve. I snatched up my bow and quiver and snagged the strap of my father's bag as I passed it, sliding it over my shoulders.

Readying an arrow I darted into the hall.

How long had I stared out the window? How long had I been distracted? Only a few minutes I'd thought…but apparently that had been long enough.

Open warfare had broken out – my friends against Umbrella attackers. Bullet holes pot-marked the walls and ceiling and ahead a body was sprawled, hanging half-in half-out of a bedroom. I recognized Phil, saw him swing a hard right-hook at a masked invader. He connected and for a moment our eyes locked – then he was jerking, spasming uncontrollably before abruptly dropping to the floor.

Another Umbrella employee appeared behind him as he fell, busily reloading the taser gun he'd used to drop Phil. Over the man's shoulder I saw Sarah, struggling, fighting, as someone dragged her toward the stairwell.

Before I even knew what I was doing, I had aimed and released.

The arrow snapped down the hall and with a sound like wet fabric being ripped, tore into Sarah's captor's throat, nailing him back against the wall. He struggled, groped at the arrow, and went still.

Sarah wrenched away from him, turning wide eyes on me.

The man who'd taken down Phil was leveling his weapon at me, I screamed at Sarah to run and grabbed at another arrow – but I knew there was no way I'd have enough time to pull it free from the quiver, his finger was already tightening on his trigger...Suddenly another man in black appeared, slamming his hand down on the first's gun, sending the electricity laced bolts directly into the carpet.

"No!" I heard him shout above the din. "You know the orders! She's not to be-"

Whatever their orders were, and whatever they meant for me, he didn't get a chance to say. A well placed arrow took him in the chest, silencing him. I pulled another, aimed at the other, but he jumped aside, diving into an open room and the sharp head buried into the jam.

Deciding not to wait for him to reappear, I took off, scrambling into the stairwell – where I ran smack into a thick cloud of noxious smoke.

My throat immediately began to close, my eyes to water. Gagging and choking I bumped into the wall, struggling to orient myself. I found the stairs by almost falling down them; I caught the railing just in time to save my neck.

There were more screams and shouts, gunfire, and above it all, the relentless droning of the planes. I felt something – someone - brush against me, but I couldn't see…I pushed at it, knocking whoever it was away, and stumbled down the stairs.

It was a burning, nightmare run that seemed to go on forever, but I did eventually break into the main floor and eyes streaming, lungs screaming I took stock – more bodies, what might have been Amy's hair pooling out from behind the couch, what was definitely Spade, bloodied and dead, his barrel chest riddled with bullets, more of Wesker's goons…everywhere.

What could I do?

_Nothing._

Nothing but turn-tail and run.

~.~

I abandoned the mill, the home I had known for the last two years, and burst outside. The roar of the planes doubled as soon as I hit open air and over my fear, over my anger and shame and guilt I could feel _him_ – his eyes suddenly on me as I streaked across the yard, running…running without thought, without any greater direction than away.

I could have unlocked the gate and gone that way. I could have pushed through the newly discovered hole in the fence and escaped there…but I couldn't stop. I'd started running and now it was all I could do.

I sprinted along the fence, over the grass and rocks, and down, finally down into the river. The water was cold, and yanked viciously at my legs, trying to pull them from under me as I plunged forward.

But I didn't stop.

The current dragged at me, began to pull me away, pull me down. Water rushed up over my waist, my chest, my neck…over my head. My clothes, the bag, even my bow weighed me down, pulled me deeper.

My lungs burned, I couldn't breathe, and slowly black crept in.

Cold and dark washed over me. Took away everything.

No pain, no thought, no feeling...

Just cold…and dark.


	9. Chapter 9

A/n's: Wee! Here it is finally! Sorry about the delay, my Beta has been unavailable and I am seriously reluctant to post anything without it passing her stringent "I love it!" test. ;)

Seriously though, this chapter is a really short one and that's intentional. I like to think of this chapter as the…intermission if you will. The half-way point between Acts I and II, the moment where everything has clearly changed….

Enjoy!

Warnings: None. (Well, one teeny, tiny little swear. Seriously. Just the one.)

* * *

The Emperor

"_The Emperor card is the 'Who's the boss?' card. The meaning of the card includes being in control over your environment, your body, your temper, your instincts, your love life. This is not the time to give into the unconscious, not the time to let yourself be controlled by the wants and needs of others. It is a card that gives permission to be aggressive, brave, bold and in command. The Emperor could be a father or father figure, leader or employer, either a demanding tyrant or a charismatic king."_

_-Thirteen, Aeclectic Tarot_

The Big Apple, once alive, bursting with light and sound, once a crown jewel of commerce, entertainment, and life…now festered, rotting from the inside out. The streets were dark and dangerous in ways no native, no matter how old or street-wise, could have ever imagined. Infected slouched through the streets, mindless and salivating, lurching between hollowed husks of cars. The buildings, what remained of the once proud New York skyline, glowered down on the dead, blackened windows like empty, accusing eyes. There was little sound – a sickly, sweet smelling wind howling down deserted boulevards, the occasional rustle of litter beneath the dragging feet of the undead, and the carriers themselves, stumbling and moaning as they staggered ever onward in their instinctual search for flesh.

The city was dead.

The world was dead.

At least, the surface world at any rate. The land below, however...The deep, secret core buried beneath the concrete and steel _thrived_.

_Umbrella_ thrived.

Nestled safe within the earth the New York Facility bustled with life – tonight even more so than usual as new arrivals were wheeled, unconscious, into the gleaming white labs to be cleaned, cataloged and divided by gender and age for processing. The air hissed with excitement – new, healthy, specimens were so very hard to come by – and a respectable amount of trepidation. Whatever opportunities lie with these warm bodies, they would be approved by, and overseen by, _him_.

Chairman Wesker; Umbrella's mysterious overseer – the man who called the shots and pulled the strings – the prodigal son, the home-grown monster.

His name was legend amongst Umbrella's employees, whispered in envious awe...and hushed fear. Most had never seen him, and, truth be told many still hadn't, he'd arrived just before the captured survivors, striding out of his plane without missing a step and growling out a series of orders before climbing into one of the shining elevators and disappearing down into the bowels of the facility to lock himself away in commandeered quarters.

Results, he demanded. And he was not to be disturbed until they were ready.

~.~

Five more minutes, Wesker gave himself with a terse glance at the face of the watch he was buckling around his damp wrist. Five more minutes to indulge the sliding tendencies of his thoughts and then he would be firm, he would focus – he would put her aside.

That those five minutes were even necessary frustrated him…and also confused him. And confusion wasn't an emotion he was used to feeling. With quick, agitated movements he swiped a white towel, monogrammed with the Umbrella logo, down his chin and across his chest

He'd already given her the flight back, his shower…why did she continue to haunt him? Why couldn't he stop thinking about her?

The towel hit the floor with a wet slap and he stalked out of the full, in suite bathroom and over to the wide, dark bed upon which his clothes waited. A black turtle-neck sweater, neatly pressed black trousers, a handsomely tailored black blazer, and, finally, a pair of sleek aviator sunglasses. He snatched the glasses up first, pushing them onto his face with a small exhale of relief. His eyes, so hyper-sensitive to light and without their usual protection, had been smarting and stinging for days.

"_You can see in the dark, can't you?"_

Her voice, gentle and teasing, replayed inside his head again as he picked up his trousers and his fingers tightened unconsciously on the slick fabric, crushing the careful pleating in a suddenly fierce grip.

He had wanted her, wanted what she could give him, with her mouth, with her arms, with the movement of her body against his. He had wanted, and he had taken. But then, so had she – she'd drawn him farther and deeper than he'd intended to go. She'd sparked a burning fire that consumed his thoughts and kept him stumbling over simple tasks, that interfered with his schedule in ways nothing before ever had, as he lingered over her face, her voice…the aching sensation of her fingers brushing over his skin, her body tightening around him.

But _why_?

The knuckles against the black whitened and Wesker lifted his free hand to rub the heel against his throbbing temple. The physical was not explanation enough; there was simply no reason for this…_obsession. _No reason why he shouldn't be able to put her aside, to forget her….

Unless he considered her mind, intuitive, and quicker and cleverer than she let on. And her spirit – he recalled the determined lift of her chin, the flash of temper in her eyes as he'd teased and challenged her. And…her laugh, like warm scotch, drugging in its wild, almost manic flavor.

He licked his lips and swore he could taste it, taste her, there.

_Damn her._

She belonged here. However she'd done it, whatever the reason, no matter how he questioned it – he kept coming back around to the same answer. She belonged with him…to him.

And he would have her.

He yanked on his pants, buttoning and zipping as he moved across the room to tap the slim plasma screen set into the far wall. The screen winked to life and shortly after the face of a startled, young guard flashed up before him.

"Chairman, Wesker." The guard saluted as his Adam's apple lurched up and down.

Wesker could almost smell his fear through the monitor. "Get me Lieutenant Daniels."

The guard nodded, "Yes, Sir," and there was a quick flash of blank screen again before a new face appeared before him.

"Chairman." Another careful salute.

"Lieutenant." Wesker inclined his head – the closest he could get to pleasantries before diving into the task at hand. "Do you have the final numbers yet?"

"Yes, Sir. Eight taken alive and are currently awaiting processing, three dead, and five unaccounted for." He paused, then added quickly, "Four of ours were wounded, one seriously, and two were killed."

Wesker barely heard the last, his mind turning busily turning over the former.

He didn't even bother to question himself this time. He'd made his decision – and her fate was sealed.

"Lieutenant," his tone was cool and direct - order not to be questioned. "Replace your men. Tomorrow you will return and you will find them."

To his credit Daniels was quick to cover the slight widening of his eyes with a sharp nod of agreement. "Yes, Sir."

"And Lieutenant – no mistakes this time. I meant what I said. I want her - alive, and unharmed."

He paused, just a heartbeat. "Yes, Sir."

Daniels' image shifted as he started to reach up to disconnect, but Wesker cut him off.

"One more thing, Lieutenant."

Daniels' hand wavered at the bottom of the screen.

"The arrows that killed your men, I want them too."

Daniels just had time to blink in surprised confusion before Wesker hung up.


	10. Chapter 10

A/n's: Wow this chapter took a long time. No excuses because a) what it boils down to is that I suck and b) after such a long wait I know ya'll are probably really eager to get on with it.

Note #1 – I'm still a little unsure about this chapter. There are parts I really like…and others, well….Ya'll just have to let me know what you think. Note #2 – We get a little AU with this chapter. Just the tiniest bit. Just pretend the last minute, minute and a half of Afterlife (Umbrella's planes swooping down on Alice's Arcadia) didn't happen. At least not yet anyway, (Oh noes! Did I possibly say too much? XP).

Additional note – I have posted bonus features on my profile. Right now there are just tracks from the "soundtrack," but I've got icons I could link too if anyone's interested.

Warnings: Swearing, pseudo-science,…and possible purple prose. *is shamed*

* * *

Chapter Ten

Death

"_Death is often seen as a frightening card because Death is most often seen as an end, and we do hate for things to come to an end. However, Death is a natural and important, if sad part of an on-going cycle. In a karmic sense, you die so that you may be reborn. Winter comes so that there can be spring, and we can only appreciate what we have when we know loss. The Death card signals such things. You may feel sad or empty, but this will give you a way to rise again, like a phoenix from the ashes. Death is not the end; it is only the precursor to resurrection."_

_-Thirteen, Aeclectic Tarot_

There was pain. And warbling voices. I heard them – I felt it, but neither occurrence seemed particularly important. I could let them go, let them drift away, and simply be…here. Here in the warm dark, cocooned in the stillness and wrapped in the familiar scent of cedar and pine.

There was fear, and pain, and uncertainty; here was peace and memory….

I was happy here. I wanted to stay here.

_Oh, Mooch…._

Cedar and pine tickled in my nose and warmth brushed over me like arms gathering me close.

_You have to go back, you know that._

There was a zap of connection, awareness, and a red star-burst of pain exploded over me. I shrank away, tried to send it away again, but it remained on the edge of understanding – waiting. I tried to cling, tried to clutch this moment – this feeling – to me.

_**It hurts.**_

_I know._ Cedar and pine, soothing, but growing fainter. _But it's nothing to be afraid of – it's all a part of being alive. And you have so very much living left to do._

I was losing. I could feel myself falling away; pain and heat were creeping in – the hollow voices and a soft popping crowding out the comforting presence of my father.

_**I'm scared.**_

_Don't be. They're waiting for you – he's waiting for you._

I had time to feel a quick slap of confusion, and then new scents were stealing across my senses – leather, soap…and blood - and a new voice was in my head.

_I'm waiting for you…._

I jerked as my eyes flew open and a sharp, stabbing pain ripped through my chest, robbing my cry of anguish of its force and leaving it instead as a gasp of longing.

"Wesker!"

"She's awake!" Another voice immediately followed my own, but it wasn't Wesker. It was young, female, and familiar in its shrill tones of panic.

Sarah. She suddenly filled my field of vision, blocking out an odd flickering light and a strangely cracked ceiling.

Her hair was frizzed, fly-aways poking free of her long braid in every which direction. She was pale, her eyes big and round, and a dark smudge tracked down one small cheek. She looked away, at something, someone, I couldn't see. "Mr. Bill! She's awake!" And then turned her gaze to me again, smiling wide, her eyes bright. "I'm glad you're awake."

I felt my mouth work, but a rusty croaking was the only sound I could make.

Her smile lingered and she patted my cheek – then suddenly hopped over me (the movement was so quick I felt my stomach turn over), making room for Bill to lean over me.

"Welcome back," he said softly. He smiled as well, but his mouth was bracketed by crinkles of worry. His hand tracked through my field of vision and a second later I felt his touch, cool and gentle, against my brow – like a worried mother checking for fever. "How do you feel?"

I took a breath, shallow and slow, and managed, "My chest…I can't..." I started to reach up, seeking the source of my hurt with one uncertain hand, but a sharp dart of pain wrapped around my nerves, cutting off my search as my fist clenched tightly in response. "It hurts," I hissed, fingers squeezing white.

"Ah."

It was only one word. Not even a word truthfully, more of a sound – a very sad sound and above the throbbing fire in my chest I felt a twinge of fear for what was coming next.

Bill's touch fell away and he sighed softly. "That's to be expected, I suppose." He paused…and then carried on in a rush. "One of your ribs is broken. Probably, anyway – it's hard to tell, but we heard something snap."

I felt my eyes start to widen, I saw Bill's respond similarly, but before either of us could say anything, Sarah's voice was cutting in, her hands, warm and small, curling around one of mine.

"It was an accident!" she insisted, holding me tight. "We didn't mean-"

"Of course not!" Bill added quickly. "But we had to do something. You weren't breathing when we pulled you out of the river."

"CPR," Sarah inserted helpfully.

Bill nodded. "Yes. I thought I remembered the proper technique, but…perhaps not…."

Bill's guilt was clear – from the tight set of his mouth to the weary slope of his shoulders. Sarah was uncertain, her fingertips jumping against my skin as she watched and waited for my response.

Intelligently, I knew, and could understand, that they hadn't meant the harm to me – that they had only been trying to save my life - and I was appreciative! But foremost in my mind in that first moment was the numbing realization of what a broken rib would mean: no hunting, I couldn't kill if I couldn't draw my bow; no running…perhaps not even walking.

What would I do if I got into trouble? I wouldn't be able to fight _or_ flee….

_No._

I went into full denial mode. I couldn't be – I wouldn't be – that helpless. I failed, I struggled, and I began to force myself upright.

Pain be damned.

Sarah gasped, Bill immediately tried to soothe me back into a prone position – two sets of hands fluttering around me.

I ignored them both. Rather than listen and obey, I grabbed a hold of them both and used them to help pull myself up.

"No," I panted. "Let me do this."

The pain was beyond anything I'd ever felt…anything I could have imagined. It rolled in my stomach, boiling up the back of my throat in a vicious bile. My head throbbed as if my skull had been squeezed into an invisible vice; my vision swam in frothing black foam. More than likely I was going to be sick all over myself and pass out again as soon as I was up, but I didn't care. As long as I did it, so long as I knew I _could_ do it….

Somehow I made it and, despite my ridiculous instance on proving myself, Bill and Sarah helped prop me up against – _a tree_?

"Are you alright?" the former asked as I stared upward, realizing for the first time that what I had initially believed to be a ceiling – if an oddly deformed one – was actually a series of bowing tree limbs, weaving above our heads, patches of glittering star-studded sky peeking through the leaves.

I blinked up at the luminous night as I swam in dual layers of pain and confusion, and slowly shook my head. "No."

"I think you should lie down again," Bill told me, hands extended toward me as if he expected me to keel over at any moment.

I ignored that - I'd just gotten up, I wasn't going back down now unless I had to – and asked instead, "Wh- where are we?"

He blew out a tired breath and let me go. "About a mile and half downstream from the mill. We'd have liked to be further, but it was tough traveling, what with you being hurt…and us not knowing where else to go."

The mill….for a moment after he said it my trouble breathing had nothing to do with my broken rib. My eyes closed and the images, the sounds and the tastes and the feelings, began to play back in my head: the look in Phil's eyes right before he was dropped like a stone, a man in black dead with an arrow in his chest, dark stains spreading across pale carpet, Daryl with his eyes like misted glass, shell casings bouncing off concrete, Spade so small and fragile in death, and Wesker…. Wesker silhouetted against a cobalt sky, Wesker with his demon eyes gleaming in his angel face, Wesker swaddled in his parachute, Wesker taunting me with my own knife, Wesker on TV denying the charges against Umbrella, Wesker in my arms giving me blood-tinted kisses, Wesker holding me, Wesker whispering to me, Wesker inside me….

"It wasn't a nightmare…" I heard myself whisper, just barely able to get the words out. "Was it? It actually happened…."

Bill looked away, a breath shuddering out of him noisily. "I wish I could tell you otherwise," he admitted with a small shake of his head. "But I can't. I'm sorry."

It was my turn to look away, emotion tight in my chest.

How could I respond to that?

Sarah, clever little Sarah, seemed to understand.

She shifted beside me, sitting close, and rested her cheek lightly against my shoulder as she took one of my hands again.

I squeezed her back, touched in ways I couldn't really explain, as my eyes lighted upon a small fire, dancing merrily in a roughly dug bowl a few feet away – the source of the strange flickering glow I'd noticed before. Beside the dancing red-gold flames a pair of well-recognizable shadows were cast long across the dirt – my bow and quiver. My eyes followed the curve and found them resting against another tree…unexpectedly propped beside a familiar duffel bag.

I looked back at Bill, then down at Sarah, grief and pain spiking with gratitude.

"You pulled them out of the river too?"

Bill looked at me for a moment, then, of all things, laughed. "Well don't cry about it," he said softly. "I didn't have a lot of choice. They were attached to you."

My lips twitched, and, incredibly, I wanted to laugh too. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it," Bill replied. "I didn't do anything anyone else wouldn't do. And besides, that bag has been helpful." He paused a moment, looking at me carefully. "I'm sorry we had to go through it without asking first, but we didn't see any other-"

My desire to laugh was suddenly replaced by the need to clear my throat. "Don't mention it. I…I'm glad it could help."

"We just took the lighter," Sarah said quietly, her head lifting from my shoulder as she shifted and reached into the pocket of her jeans, pulling out the battered gold lighter I had, once upon time, given to my father. "I learned how to start fires in girl scouts, but this is so much easier…." She trailed off, her little fingers rubbing across the smooth metal the same way mine used to, and I could tell it meant more than just that to her.

A literal light in the dark?

Yes, I could see how that would be a comfort.

Carefully, and oh so slowly, I lifted an arm and wrapped it around the girl's slender shoulders. "Keep it," I told her.

"Really?" her eyes snapped up to mine again, bright and wide.

"Yes, really. You're our girl scout extraordinaire, who could be better than you?"

Sarah looked down at the lighter for a long moment. When she looked back at me, her eyes were shining with wet. "Thank you."

I looked at Bill as I hugged her to me as fiercely as I could without aggravating my side. "Don't mention it."

He smiled gently, nodding approvingly at me, then tipped his head toward the bag across the way. "Think I might be worthy of a change of clothes when they dry out? I promise I won't touch-"

"Dry out?" I interrupted as soon as the words sank in, a shiver of dread threading through me. "What do you mean, 'dry out?' That bag should be water proof."

Bill's smile faltered, and slowly began to fade, a look of confusion replacing it as he looked between the bag and me. "Water proof? I don't think so – it's canvas. Canvas isn't water-"

"My father treated it himself. I watched him-"

"And I'm sure he did," Bill tacked on quickly. "I'm sure he did everything he could to make it water-_resistant_, but…you were in, and under, the water for several minutes. Canvas can't hold up to that." He tried to smile again, tried to soothe me. "But no harm done really – it's just clothes. They'll dry."

"But the journal won't."

Where the tears came from, so fast and so hot, I didn't know. I hadn't thought of that little leather-bound book in years, not since the day I'd zipped up the bag for the last time, but now…thinking of losing it, of losing the words my father had so carefully recorded….

"What journal?" Sarah and Bill asked at the same time, their voices echoing concern and bewilderment.

Heat tracked down my cheeks, I backhanded at it hastily, smearing tears across my knuckles. "My father's journal, in the inside pocket. He found it shortly after we left, this little red book, and starting writing in it – he always had it with him. Even…even at the end. He wrote…right before…."

I could almost see him – hunched over the page, trying desperately to hold the book and pen in hands that he couldn't stop shaking. He trembled over the words, ink mixing with the blood that ran from the wound that refused to clot. By the time he'd finished, by the time he'd pressed that little red book in my hands, he'd lost his color and I could see his veins, black and blue, road-mapped beneath his skin…rushing the infection through his system even as he smiled and told me he didn't blame me….

The tight pressure of Sarah's grip in the present pulled me out of the past in time to hear her and Bill confirm to each other that they'd found no such journal.

I looked between them, eyes and chest both burning – one from grief, the other from pain. "I put it there," I insisted. "Right after…he died. I _know_ it's there."

Bill reached out and carefully laid a hand over the free one of mine.

"We went through the bag, every pocket, every zipper," he said slowly, his calm blue-green eyes searching my blurry ones. "There's no journal. It's not there."

I stared back at him, willed him to be lying…but I knew he wasn't.

Losing steam, my argument lacked passion and instead sounded broken and sad even to my ears. "It has to be."

"But it isn't." His tone was understanding, but the words were heavy with finality.

It was gone. Not because it had gotten wet and the ink had run into blotches of dark meaninglessness as I'd feared, but because it was physically lost – gone from the place I had so long thought it to be and gone from me, from my life. Yes, I had hid it away, had avoided it for years, but I had believed that it would be there, safe, if someday I changed my mind…if someday I was ready to face it.

Now I would never know.

"I'm sorry," Sarah whispered up at me, hugging me a grip that was tight enough to set off white-hot starbursts of pain in my ribs.

It hurt…but I didn't stop her. The physical hurt was good…it took the edge of the emotional pain.

I took a deep breath, savored…and felt a creeping numbness ripple through my body right before I was dipped back, once more, into the black void of unconsciousness.

~.~

"Subjects M-1 and 2 were administered T-virus strain V, subjects F-1 and 2 were administered virus strain G," the doctor glanced down, checking something off screen, then hastily looked back up, swallowing nervously. "At hour one we recorded discoloration at the site of injection. At hour five all subjects displayed fevers above 100 degrees Fahrenheit-"

Wesker blew a heavy breath through his nose, stopping the doctor in his tracks.

"Doctor Brooks," the chairman began, his words clipped, strangled slightly by the frustrated tension wound in the muscles of his jaw. "I am well aware of the procession of infection. I don't need you to tell me what I can see simply by looking outside. The purpose of the experiment was to test the vitality of the newly produced antigens Vaccine-C and AT1521." Wesker tipped his head, just a fraction. "Unless, of course, you prefer subterranean life, Doctor?"

The doctor paled visibly. He, unlike his predecessor, was intelligent enough to recognize the veiled threat when he heard it. "No, no, of course not, Chairman. I just-I thought-"

"Get on with it," Wesker warned, his patience wearing thin.

Doctor Brooks nodded and looked again at his off-screen notes. "Yes. Of course. Hour 11, subject F-2 entered coma and was administered serum Vaccine-C." He paused, glancing up. "So far we have seen no response." Another pause. "Hour 13, subject M-1 entered coma and was administered serum Vaccine-C. No response recorded thus far. Hour 14, M-2 entered coma and was administered serum AT1521…at this time there has been no-"

"Nothing, Doctor?" The words were low, dangerously soft. "You paged me with nothing to show when I made it clear I was interested in results only?"

"Subject F-1 hasn't yet entered the final stage, we have hope-"

Behind his sunglasses Wesker's eyes closed, just a moment, as he took a breath and licked his teeth. "I hope too, Doctor. For your sake." And he reached up and clicked off his monitor.

End of discussion.

Silence fell over Wesker's quarters, the quiet broken only by the gentle hum and pop of the monitor as it cooled and shut down. For a long, stretched, moment he didn't move, staring instead at the black screen as his mind turned.

Doctor Brooks findings were not unexpected. For five years everything they'd tried to reverse, quell, or simply eradicate the spread and effects of the T-virus, and its various strains, had failed. He hadn't honestly believed the newly developed serums would prove any different – they were too like their predecessors.

The key ingredient was still missing…still eluding them.

But they'd find it - find her. Project Alice. They'd done it before, they'd do it again, and besides, an oil tanker like The Arcadia wasn't going to be easy to hide.

She'd turn up, sooner or later.

His lips twitched suddenly as a tendril of amusement wormed through him.

For the second time in less than 24-hours he was committing to hunting down a woman.

He scratched his jaw idly, thoughtfully, and pushed out of his desk chair, crossing to the wide, dark bed on the other side of the room.

Two completely different women with completely different roles to play.

One was destined to die. Her blood was the key to bringing the biohazard under control. She was the answer to taking back the surface, to rebuilding their world.

The other….

He perched himself on the edge of his bed and reached for the nightstand, pulling the little drawer open smoothly and reaching inside.

A little red book with a well broken spine.

His fingers skimmed across the pebbled leather cover and curled around the spine so he could pull it free and flip loosely through the pages.

It had caught his attention, and his curiosity, the instant he'd seen it, tucked away out of sight in the inside pocket of a bag full of clothes. He'd wanted it, he'd taken it…and he'd kept it – returning often in the quiet hours to the time-softened pages, sinking himself into the mind of a stranger he eventually came to understand as a hunter, a leader, and most intriguingly, a father.

The whole of the book was insightful, if not particularly informative – there was a lack of attention to detail, to specifics, that frustrated the researcher in him – but it was, in truth, the passages about her specifically that interested him the most. The writer of these pages, this man, knew her; he understood her, and through him Wesker earned confirmation of things he'd seen for himself and things he'd guessed at - motivations, desires, fears, hopes – and he got to experience, at its fullest, what he had only tasted.

Her loyalty…and her love.

In the interim this book was a passable substitute for what he really wanted. He could read these pages and feel her presence until he could reach out and have her, warm and flesh.

~.~

When I woke the second time, it was to the sound of new voices.

New, but familiar.

I was again flat on my back, the night sky winking down at me through the gaps in the sweeping branches of the tree I was tucked under. The voices were off to my left, coming from the same direction as the light playing off the dark undersides of the leaves above my head. I couldn't quite make out what they were saying – the words were too soft, too quick – but the tone was insistent. Tense.

I braced myself, steadying myself against the burst of pain that was sure to come, and turned slowly, holding my breath and gritting my teeth, as I angled my head and rolled carefully onto my right shoulder, trying, haphazardly, to prop myself up on my arm.

They were over by the fire; grouped close together, their shoulders hunched as they whispered. Sarah and Bill and…Christy! And Andrew!

The fire in my chest instantly lessened, succumbing under the joy of finding more of my friends alive and well, if careworn and dirty.

I drank in the sight of them, a grin pulling at my mouth. But before I could interrupt, before I could call out to them, Christy's dark head lifted and her eyes, glinting in the reflection of the firelight like a cat's, met mine.

For a heartbeat we were connected by something indeterminable, her unreadable expression causing my pleased one to falter – but then, just as fast, her eyes softened and her mouth moved into a mirror of mine.

"Hey," she drawled, finally loud enough for me to understand, cuffing Andrew, who was seated next to her, gently on the arm with the back of her hand. "Look who's finally awake."

Three more pairs of eyes swiveled to look at me and Bill smiled, nudging Sarah with his elbow. "See, I told you she'd be alright."

The girl looked sheepish as she clambered up and hurried to my side, reaching to help me sit up. "Sorry I hurt you," she apologized softly. "I didn't mean to."

"Oh, Sarah, you didn't-" I broke off with a wince as I righted and leaned back, once again, against the tree trunk. "You didn't hurt me," I finished after swallowing down my pain until it was bearable – an under current, rather than a jolt. "I was just…tired."

Tired wasn't even the tip of the iceberg, but it made Sarah smile and that was all that mattered.

"See," Bill said again, a chuckle rasping through his tone. "I-"

"I'm glad she's alright too," interrupted Andrew suddenly, speaking for the first time since I'd woken. He was rubbing at the palm of his hand with his thumb, not looking at me, not looking at anyone. "Maybe now we can get answers."

Bill's face darkened into a frown, Sarah shifted and settled in the dirt beside me, Christy looked away, suddenly unable to bear the sight of me….

Answers.

I could guess what Andrew meant by that. He'd been there, in the little clearing with me, and Bill, and Kyle, when we'd found Daryl. He'd seen my reaction and he'd figured out that I had more pieces to the puzzle than he…and now he wanted to know. He wanted to see the whole picture….

He wanted me to admit to what I'd done, to the role I'd had to play.

A creeping numbness began to steal over my body, a restricting net of pain and guilt that held me trapped as Andrew finally looked up and pinned my gaze with his own.

"What happened?"

It was a simple question, straightforward and flat…but there was no simple way to answer.

I looked at Andrew helplessly. _Don't make me do this._

"We know it was Umbrella," he continued when I refused to start. "We saw the logo – it was on them, on the planes. And we know what Umbrella did, or at least what everyone said they did…that they had something to do with – all this…the disease, the zombies….But why? Why did they come for _us_? How did they know? Where did they take the others…and what happened to Daryl?"

"This is ridiculous, Andrew. Do you honestly think she'd-"

"I don't know all the answers."

Bill had leapt to my defense, and because of that, because of him, the dear sweet man who had saved my life, I couldn't keep quiet, I couldn't swallow down my guilt. I had to admit the truth.

"Not all of them."

All four sets of eyes were on me now, watching. Two were incredulous, unbelieving, one was uncertain, the fourth was hard and flat.

I took a breath, my eyes falling closed under the weight of their stares.

I was the one now who couldn't bear to look at _them_.

"It was Wesker. He…he led them to us. And…I think, he killed Daryl."

There was a long pause, uncomfortably pregnant with tension, then came release in the form of an explosion of sound that had my eyes flying open to find Andrew on his feet, his face twisted into a harsh mask.

"You think! You _think?_ Fuck you." He jabbed a finger at me. "You know. You just don't want to believe it!"

"I don't know!" I shouted back, vision blurring as emotion hit me hard. "I don't! I…I just – I just know I saw, I felt…."

"What do you know?" Bill wasn't shouting, but his voice wasn't normal either.

I looked at him weakly, wishing him not to hate me. Not to blame me. "I saw the fabric…when we found Daryl, caught on the tree. It was the same color…the same color as the shirt Wesker was wearing when…when he came to me – the night before."

"You're disgusting," Andrew whispered cruelly, his voice choked and trembling. "Daryl told you. He tried to warn you that that _thing_ wasn't human, that it couldn't be trusted, but no….No, you were too busy getting on your kneesto notice it was working for Umbrella!"

Something inside me broke, snapped…gave away under Andrew's words, and the heat in my eyes began to roll down my face. He didn't have to be accurate, to be right. Daryl _had_ warned me, over and over, but I hadn't listened. I'd wanted to believe…I'd wanted to accept…I'd wanted Wesker. I'd been stupid…I'd been weak. And my friends had paid the price.

"I'm sor-"

"Don't!" Andrew snapped. "Don't you dare. My brother is gone. Dead - for all I know. And the only thing your fucking apology is going to do is make me puke. So keep it. And choke on it."

He spat, once, the intention of it clear even if the glob landed short, and then whirled, stalking into the night, the machete on his back the last thing I saw – the well-honed edge gleaming malevolently.

No one said anything, did anything, until Christy suddenly stood. "I'll go-" she jerked a thumb over her shoulder in the direction Andrew had gone. "I'll just…" she trailed off uncertainly, and then, rather than continue trying to explain, she simply walked away. Turning on her heel as well and marching after Andrew.

"It's not your fault," came Sarah's soft voice from beside me once Christy was gone. "You didn't know."

"She's right," Bill agreed quickly. "It's not your fault. You wanted to believe he'd help us…and you weren't the only one. I wanted to too."

Sarah's soft cheek brushed my shoulder. "Me too."

"I liked it," I heard myself whisper as I stared uselessly down at my lap. "Being with him, talking to him…the way he made me feel." My hands curled, nails biting into my palms. More painful truth, more guilt. "What does that make me?"

"It makes you human," was Bill's gentle reply. "A young, vital, woman who had been alone and sad for a long time; who wanted to believe the connection she felt to another warm, living being was real. And that maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't have be lonely, or scared, or so infallibly strong anymore."

"I don't think he meant to hurt us…" I looked up slowly, found Bill watching me with an expression of wary sympathy. "One of the men stopped one his own from attacking me. He said, 'We have our orders. She isn't to be….' something. I…I stopped him before he could get it all out."

Bill's response to that was slow in coming, as if he was reluctant to voice what he was thinking. "Or maybe Wesker didn't intend to hurt _you. _Perhaps for him…the connection _was_ real. Maybe he hoped it would be enough for you to forgive him, for you to overlook what he did to Daryl and what he planned to do to us."

"You wouldn't, would you?" Sarah asked, taking a hold of my elbow, clinging to me as uncertainty colored her voice. "You wouldn't forgive him for he did."

"I…"

Bill was watching me, his face soft, but careful. He, like Sarah, wanted to believe the best of me. Wanted to believe I wouldn't let a man, no matter what he said, or did, or made me feel, turn me against my friends.

And they were right.

Weren't they?

"I…I hope not," was all I could say.


	11. Chapter 11

A/n's: My sincerest, most heartfelt apologies over the time it took me to get this chapter written. I have excuses I could give you, but at the end of the day they're just that – excuses. Just know I apologize and hope you all can forgive me.

Also, my sincerest, most heartfelt thanks to everyone who has reviewed. You are so wonderful; you've all said such wonderful things...you don't know how much it means to me. I just hope I can live up to all your compliments.

Warnings: Swearing, sexual innuendo.

* * *

Chapter Eleven

Seven of Wands

"_This is the 'under siege' card. The stakes are high, and suddenly, you're under attack; often when you're tired or vulnerable. You're being criticized; you're on the defensive. This card urges you to stand your ground. Don't give up, don't surrender. If you do, your enemies will take control and show you no mercy. Fear not, success is near to hand."_

_-Thirteen, Aeclectic Tarot_

Time seemed to crawl by; not so much like sand in the hourglass, but rather like thick, cloying mud that dragged on, and on.

Had he ever experienced a night so long?

Perhaps, Wesker conceded with a slow roll of his shoulders, folding his hands neatly behind his back as he considered those first, trying, weeks after the compromise of the Hive Facility….but on those nights he'd been naught but Umbrella's Chairman, working only in the best interests of the company, seeing through the business of their global franchise. This, however…was so much more – personal.

Behind him, the door to the observation deck breezed open and the rush of in-swept air carried to him the odd scent combination of leather, gunpowder, and cigarettes - revealing before she even spoke just who had joined him on the balcony.

"Chairman Wesker." She spoke slow and even, incapable of anything beyond robotic dispassion. "Lieutenant Daniels and his team are ready for launch."

Wesker's chin lifted, his fingers flexing in a quick, eager movement. "Very well, Miss Valentine. You have your orders."

Out of the corner of his eye he saw her head dip in a small jerk, the gleaming metal device on her chest coming alive with a blood colored glow as it injected a dose of mind-controlling drug into her veins and forced her compliance. "Yes, sir."

She withdrew, and from below the whine began – slow and soft at first, then louder, and faster, growing on itself, rumbling into a great mechanical roar. Lights that ran the vertical length of the hanger bay began to flash around him, a long sequence winking red, then white, and above his head the heavy blast ceiling split and began to retract with a deep grinding he felt as much as heard.

A hazy gray dawn came into view; its fresh, damp breeze spilling into the bay and churning with the stale inside air in a fierce whirl-wind that tugged at his hair, fluttered the lapel of his jacket. He stepped forward, resting his palms on the smooth metal railing that encased the balcony as the sleek V-22 below lifted its wheels from the deck and began to climb toward him.

_Soon._

The plane ascended past him, its black underbelly blotting out the sky.

He reached into his jacket; his fingertips brushing automatically across the little leather book inside the breast pocket.

_Soon._

~.~

"Storm's coming," Sarah told me softly, breaking up my struggles to dress by drawing my attention upward to the patch of open sky above our make-shift campsite with a small gesture of her hand. "Red at night – sailors delight," she went on in a light, sing-song voice. "Red at morning-"

"-sailors take warning," I finished with her, eyeing the blood tinged clouds warily.

_Great_, a voice born of fatigue and pain sighed in my head as I peeled my gaze from the dawn sky and fought again to slip my arm through the appropriate hole in my vest. _All we need now is a few hell-spawn monsters, an evil corporation henchman or two, and we'll have ourselves a right little party._

"Here," a pair of gentle hands came in from my left, taking hold of the stiff, slightly damp material and holding it in place. "Let me help."

I hesitated, trying to read Christy's open, uncertain face, and then glanced quickly across at the others. Andrew, still wielding his anger like a shield, frowned from where he stood; Bill paused in his attempts to kick enough earth onto the fire to smother it and smiled placidly, nodding vague encouragement.

"I-" I tried, failed, and took the easy way out, mouth twisting lamely as I glanced at Christy and then away again before slowly threading my arm through my vest. "Thanks."

There was a moment of awkward silence as Christy helped me – going so far even as to cinch my vest tight so I could button it snug around my ribs – and then Bill, who by then had begun to stamp out the last determinedly glowing embers of the fire, spoke.

"So…" he said, clapping his hands together and scrubbing them against his pants as he looked between us in turn. "What now?"

There was another moment of quiet and Bill went on, rather unnecessarily clarifying what he meant.

"What do we do? Where do we go?"

Sure. Like those questions hadn't haunted my nightmares – the nightmares dogged by monstrous beasts, echoing wails of torment, and red-gold eyes that watched my every move….

"We could go back to the mill…?" Christy suggested, shifting uncertainly, glancing from me to Bill and back again.

I rested my head against the tree trunk behind me, the back of my skull rubbing against the bark as I shook it from side-to-side gently, "I don't think that's-"

-and Andrew cut me off, his head snapping up, eyes cold and hard as he stared at me.

"You don't get a vote."

Is that really necessary, Andrew?" Bill asked with a tired sigh. "Aren't things bad enough without all the vitriol?"

"It's alright, Bill," I said softly before Andrew could turn the waspish expression he had leveled at Bill into hateful words. "Let him be angry. It's not like it's completely unfounded and, what's more, it's not like it's going change anything. It won't take back what I did; it won't bring back the others…." My eyes shifted almost of their own volition, unerringly finding Andrew's gaze as I chose my next words carefully. "And it's certainly not going to change the fact that going back to the mill is a bad idea."

Andrew sneered, his lip curling above his teeth, but, once again, before he could speak someone beat him to the punch.

Sarah, gripping my arm gently and looking up at me with a confused, furrowed brow, asked, "Why?"

"Because it'll be the first place Umbrella looks for us," I explained.

"You think they'll come back?" Christy asked, eyes round and worried.

Did I have proof? Could I say for certain, one hundred percent?

No.

But it made sense. It felt…right. Something inside told me it wasn't over, that we hadn't seen the last of Umbrella.

Of Wesker.

"Yes," I said simply. "I do."

"What, did your freak lover leave you instructions?" Andrew finally got his word in edgewise and they were as cruel and hurtful as expected. "Ten easy ways to get the rest of us killed and eaten?"

I took a breath, held it, and repeated to myself what I'd told Bill: Andrew's anger was understandable, and, more importantly, there was nothing that I, or anyone, could do to change it, or the circumstances that had caused it.

It was a good mantra, a soothing one, but it didn't completely block the sting his attitude caused.

All I could do to fend off that was pretend like I hadn't heard…like I didn't feel the hot slap of shame and anger.

"Even-" I tried to stand, pushing back against the sturdy trunk of the tree behind me to steady myself, and Sarah's hand on my arm tightened helpfully, offering me a place to rest my weight as my side burned in protest. "Even if they don't come, it isn't smart to go back there." I found my feet and paused, eyes closing in rest, before continuing. "The fence has been breached, and that's not something we can fix. Anyone or anything could get in now."

"If they haven't already," Bill murmured then, his voice soft, considering. "All that noise yesterday would have been a dinner bell for every zombie in the county."

"Maybe even tri-county," I added gently.

"I don't wanna go back," Sarah said suddenly, holding onto me fiercely, her head shaking back and forth in sharp denial. "I don't wanna…." She pressed closer, looked up at me pleadingly. "We won't go?"

Then she turned those same eyes on Bill, and Andrew. "Will we?"

Bill moved to the girl and put a gentle hand on her shoulder. Above her head our eyes met an instant before he turned to look at Andrew. "She has a point, Andrew."

Christy shifted, stepping closer and falling in on my other side. "I don't want to go back there either," she admitted. "Daryl, Amy…they died there. I don't wanna live where they died."

Four against one. We stood together, side-by-side, united, and Andrew stood apart, casting disbelieving looks at Bill and Christy as they joined with me.

I could tell what he was thinking, could see the words forming in his eyes as they came to him. But I couldn't leave it at that; I couldn't let it end like this.

"Andrew." The sound of his name had those eyes hardening and swiveling back to me. "We should stay together. We're stronger together."

His expression didn't waver, and I knew my words meant nothing to him and I felt a pang of regret. This too now would hang over me – the fact that I had caused this fraction, this breaking of those of us that remained….

But then I heard Christy whisper, "please," and I saw Andrew shift…hesitate.

He looked round at the others, shifted his eyes from one to the next, resting for several long moments on Christy.

"I'll stay," he said finally, standing stiff and straight, his voice cool. "But I'm not staying for _you_." He pointed a finger, square and unwavering, at me, making it abundantly clear to whom he was speaking. "I'm staying for _them_." He inclined his head toward the others, but kept the focus of his attention on me. "You might have them fooled, but I'm not. And I won't let you do to them what you did to the others."

In that moment I realized that I would never be forgiven – not by Andrew at least. It was a painful truth…but, somehow, not as upsetting as it should have been, as it might once have been.

Perhaps some part of me had already guessed at and prepared me for it; or perhaps there were simply more important things to worry about than what one man, one man that I'd never been particularly close to, thought of me.

Either way, I found myself nodding in acceptance, my voice even, if soft. "Do what you think you have to, Andrew. I wouldn't expect anything less."

~.~

A black-clad tech shifted in his chair, leaning toward the scrolling map hogging the right-side of the plasma viewing screen before him as the receiver in his ear crackled with static and distorted the teeny voice reporting in. He listened, nodding, and tapped a series of keys on the control board.

On the opposite side of his screen a window popped open, empty at first, save for the ever-present Umbrella Corporation logo and the softly flashing words, "outgoing message," then suddenly it filled with the, as ever, expressionless face of Chairman Wesker.

"Chairman." The tech's eyes fixed habitually somewhere around the other man's chin, uncomfortable with meeting his gaze – even if they were shaded by dark, reflective lenses. "E.T.A. for the away-team is now fifteen minutes and counting."

If this news brought the cool blonde pleasure he didn't show it. He merely inclined his head regally and replied, "I want to be informed the _moment_ the survivors have been taken into custody."

"Aye, Chairman." The tech bowed his head and waited - ever eager to accommodate and, more importantly, terrified what might happen if he offended - for the Chairman to disconnect first.

~.~

We broke camp, brushing the earth and scattering leaves about as we left in hopes of covering our tracks against anyone that came looking after us. We had no great plan, no real sense of where to go – the only thing that guided us was the knowledge that we had leave. Even if Umbrella didn't come looking, the skies were darkening by the minute and being caught out in a storm was the last thing we needed.

We decided to follow the river, figuring at the very least we'd be guaranteed a water supply and the opportunity for food (if we could catch it). Bill lead the way, my father's bag slung over his shoulders; I followed behind, struggling not to wince with every step, bow in hand and my quiver, the remaining arrows tucked inside, draped across my back. Andrew and Christy brought up the rear, the latter whispering softly, trying to draw the other into conversation. Sarah drifted, at times walking with Bill, half-skipping to keep up with him, and then at others falling back to quietly hold my hand, apparently recharging before darting ahead once more.

My body raged at me, ribs on fire and protesting every move I made. I wanted to scream; I wanted to cry; I wanted to beg for a break, for just a few minutes to rest….but I did none of those things. I just kept walking and tried to keep from dwelling on the pain by counting all the things I found more pleasant: flannel pajamas on a cold night, bubble baths by candlelight and jazz music, drinks with friends at the little hole in the wall pub three blocks over from my apartment….

Many of them I hadn't been able to enjoy in years, and probably never would again, but they kept my mind occupied – kept the pain to a nerve-grating throb…and kept the _other_ thoughts at bay as well.

The thoughts about Umbrella…and, more specifically, the thoughts about Umbrella's chairman. The hows, and the whys – I'd have to face them eventually, but not now. I wasn't ready, and, I was afraid of what I might discover when I really took the time to question myself.

Eventually, after what felt like years, Bill came to halt, Sarah almost rebounding off his back as he paused and turned back to the rest of us.

"Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?" asked Christy, brushing at the fall of hair in her face with the back of her hand as I hunched where I stood, favoring my side.

Bill held up a hand for silence, head cocking, then pointed upward as a distant rumble rolled across the sky.

"That."

"Great." Andrew hissed a sigh between his teeth, sparing the dark, angry sky a distrustful look before turning a glare on me. "I'm so glad we decided to go with the 'wander around the woods where there's no hope of shelter' plan."

Tired, in pain, stressed - I gave into baser instincts and let myself sneer back at him, "I'd rather be wet than dead."

His eyes darkened, lip curling cruelly. "It did work for you last time."

A different sort of hurt socked me in the gut and I sucked in a hasty breath, ignoring the sharp jolt from my ribs as I straightened my stance and prepared to fire back with the first awful thing that popped into my head. "You know what, Andrew? You're right. I got _we_-"

A hand suddenly came down on my shoulder, big, warm, and squeezing insistently.

"We still have time," Bill pointed out, speaking low and soft, trying to soothe the tension. "It's a ways off yet. If we can stop wasting time by fighting with _each other_-" and an edge of weary fatigue leaked into his tone, making him sound like a frustrated parent dealing with two petulant children "- we can probably find somewhere to hole up before the storm hits."

"Uh, guys?" Christy's intrusion was distant with distraction.

When the three of us turned to her, she was standing with Sarah, one hand on the girl's shoulder for balance as she craned her head back and cocked it this way and that, listening intently as she stared up at the sky. When the silence had stretched long enough for her to realize she had our attention, she lowered her eyes to us, dark eyebrows lifted. "I'm not so sure rain's what we need to worry about."

We looked back up, all three of us at once, heads cocking like Christy's.

One heartbeat, two, then….

"Oh, God," I heard myself whisper, the sound more tired than terrified.

The thunder wasn't rolling back, wasn't diminishing, wasn't pausing to allow for a tell-tale flash of lightening. It was constant; it was growing louder; it wasn't thunder.

There was only one thing it could be…and Andrew spotted it first, flinging a hand toward the sky.

"There!"

The dark clouds birthed it above the distant horizon, a great black plane – small now, but capable of becoming large and looming within minutes as it's powerful engines and fiercely spinning propellers swept it closer. It was too far to see the logo – that damning red and white flower - to confirm, but I already knew…we all knew.

"Go!" Bill shouted, grabbing at me with one hand and thrusting the other out as if he might physically be able to push the others even across the space that separated us. "Into the trees! Run!"


	12. Chapter 12

A/n's: Holy longest chapter yet, Batman! O_o XD Enjoy it while it lasts, kids. Chapter 13 is likely to take quite a while….*le sigh*

Anyways, please enjoy and as always, my deepest thanks to everyone who left a review. You are all my heroes!

Warnings: Swearing, gore, violence, death, mentions of suicide.

* * *

Chapter Twelve

Five of Wands

"_The Five of Wands predicts conflict and power struggles. Inner doubts and fears arising, leading to confusion and panic. Ultimately, you will have to learn to enter the fray and size up the competition. If you run from it, you will never succeed at anything."_

_-Thirteen, Aeclectic Tarot_

The slap of leaves against bared skin. The crack of hurried footsteps through underbrush. The occasional pant and grunt and sharp cry of fright. The rush of blood in my ears, the quick lub-dub lub-dub of my fiercely pounding heart.

The drone of jet engines, unrelenting and growing louder. Drawing closer.

A flock of roosting swallows exploded into flight, creating a chaotic whirlwind of slender bodies and pointed wings as their shrieking calls of distress cut through the air.

Christy darted into my line of vision, then out again, swallowed up by the trees as she raced ahead. There was a flash of red to my right and a squeal of pain as Sarah tripped and went down. I started to turn, but Bill was already there, swooping down on her and scooping her up into his arms without breaking stride. They took off together and I pushed myself to keep them in sight, to stay with them.

My ribs burned and ached, slowed me down. Adrenaline helped, added extra speed to the fast pull of air into my lungs, forced my muscles to keep going when they prickled and trembled with fatigue.

But still – I fell behind. Bill and Sarah went the way of Christy, disappearing and leaving me alone.

Scanning frantically, I misjudged the width of the nearest tree and caught it with my shoulder. There was a star-burst of hurt and the arrows in my quiver rattled noisily as I was thrown off balance. I dug at the bark with scrabbling fingers and managed to keep myself from going down, but then collapsed against the trunk instead, panting as bubbles of black swam along the edges of my eyes.

Above my head the treetops trembled and the sky roared.

_Not alone, _something inside me corrected. Some small whispering voice from deep down. _Umbrella's coming._

My knuckles whitened and I wondered what would happen if I just stayed where I was. Maybe they wouldn't see me, maybe if I was small and still they'd pass right by…or maybe they wouldn't. Maybe they would find me. Find me and take me…where?

_You know. And would it really be so bad? Those things he did…maybe he had good reason…maybe…he wouldn't do them to you…._

My breath caught and I started to slip down the tree trunk, fingers trembling and going lax as I gave in, ready to surrender myself to fate-

-and a distant voice called out, "Over here! This way!"

_Andrew…He doesn't want you, he doesn't trust you. Let him, let them all, go. Umbrella's coming. Not long now. Just stay…wait…rest. They'll come for you. Take you away. And you'll know the truth…._

The wind whipped at Andrew's words, dragging them away, but already my ears had pinpointed the direction and given me a heading.

All I had to do was follow it…or not.

Go…or stay?

"Hurry!" Andrew added suddenly.

And I pushed away from the tree, stumbling in a half-circle as I sought the appropriate direction and tried to work up the energy again to run, to sprint toward my friends.

~.~

The thick, bullet-proof hull of the Osprey muffled the worst of the twin, chopping propellers, making the interior just suitable for the dictation of orders.

A dozen armored, faceless, Umbrella troopers sat along the interior walkway, six to a side, staring straight and fixed, listening as the scarab controlled Jill Valentine paced slowly between them, relaying the orders passed to her from the Chairman.

"We'll be setting down at the targets' last known location, the Purdue Lumber Mill." Jill paused, taking the lay of the land through the front windshield over the shoulders of the jet's two pilots.

Behind her, the man at the head of the right-side line twitched, his head turning surreptitiously to keep her in sight.

She heard the movement, her keen drug-heightened sense of hearing catching the soft rustle of his clothes, but she ignored him. Lieutenant Daniels was no threat to her.

She placed one foot behind the other and turned on her heels to face the men once more.

"It is unlikely that they remain, but it is where we will start the search before breaking up into the designated teams. The prime target is the group leader and orders are to take her alive and unharmed. The others-" there was a quick hiss and a soft pop – one of the needle-legs of the scarab device on her chest puncturing deep and injecting another dose of chemical when the mind buried deep beneath the drug haze fought and tried to resist the horrible order it'd been given. "The others are of non-interest. Lethal force has been authorized."

~.~

Just when I was beginning to think I'd misjudged the direction, beginning to fear that maybe I'd simply been hearing things, I broke from the timberline and stumbled unexpectedly into the wildly overgrown backyard of a two-story house.

I skidded to a sharp stop, just missing going head first into the slime covered in-ground pool. Before I could breathe a sigh of relief a shout and a quick flash of movement was drawing my attention across the yard – past the rusting swing set with the briskly swaying swings – to the corner of the imposing red-brick building where Christy was waving and calling my name as Bill, with Sarah still clasped in his arms, disappeared past her and out of sight.

"Come on!" she shouted. "This way!"

She waited for me to sprint around the end of the pool, then rounded the corner and vanished after Bill and Sarah. A moment later I followed – just in time to see her dart past Andrew, who was holding open a side-door to the house's garage.

I ran, hugging the brick, a wonderful sensation of relief sweeping through my body despite the fat, wet drops of rain that were abruptly beginning to splash down, shockingly cold, as the heavy storm clouds above finally began to unleash their burden.

_Just in time! Gonna make it, gonna-_

And Andrew suddenly stiffened, shifting himself into the doorway, blocking it with his body as his eyes, as cold as the rain on my skin, leveled on mine.

He didn't say anything; he didn't have to. His eyes, his stance, the way his hands curled and clenched into tight fists…I knew.

With a sharp stab of clarity I understood.

He had no intention of letting me through, letting me in. He was going to leave me here – in the rain, hurting, with Umbrella baring down.

I came to a stop, we were inches apart. His chin lifted, calculating, preparing…and that deep-down voice, the little whispering thing from the forest, was back, hissing inside me. Goading.

_Let him._

I felt myself falling into a mirror of his stance: chin raised, shoulders square and proud, boots apart, hands clenched – ready.

His nostrils flared; his eyes narrowed. As I had seen, as I had understood, so now did he.

His hands twitched, began to rise; I stiffened, preparing for the blow….

But suddenly Andrew was knocked aside, a low, dark shape hitting him hard – one hand snaking out to take him by the shirt while the other flung to grasp my belt.

Bill pulled hard and we both tumbled through the door, Andrew tripping and hitting the floor, me banging – ribs first – into the wall.

I curled against the pain, cradling my hurt with my arms as all my breath, all my strength rushed away on an explosion of pain. A hot, bitter bile swam in the back of my mouth, my eyes stung and watered. Just barely through the veil of tears could I see Bill slamming the garage door shut and then leaning, ear to the wood – listening.

Not that he really had to – even above the pound of blood in my ears, above the knock of my heart against my ribs, I could hear the thunderous roar of the speeding jet.

It was close, oh so close, passing right over our heads.

Tools hanging above a nearby workbench jumped on their neat little hooks, banging noisily. The windows in the soccer-mom mobile parked just beside us rattled in their frames, threatening to blow. Sarah clapped her hands over her ears and backpedaled, turning into Christy, who opened her arms and knelt with the girl, her dark head dipping to whisper encouragingly. My eyes squeezed shut; my teeth clenching together to swallow back my cry of pain, of fear…of horrible, confusing, regret.

I waited…waited….waited….

I wanted to scream!

But then, finally, the pressure began to drop, the scream of plane falling away, lessening, as it passed us and continued on. The sound deadened, became for a moment again like the thunder we'd mistaken it for earlier, then it grew softer still – barely audible above the soft plip-plop of raindrops on the garage roof – before it seemed to disappear all together.

Gone as quickly as it had come.

Silence, broken only by the falling rain and the harsh pant of someone breathing hard, stretched over the interior of the garage.

_Me_, I realized belatedly. It was me. The one panting and gasping like some over-exerted animal was me.

I tried to slow myself, tried to get a hold of myself…what was wrong with me?

Why was I acting this way, _reacting_ this way? What was that the little part of me, that whispering voice in my head? I didn't want anything to do with Umbrella, or Wesker…Wesker hurt, killed, my friends. I didn't want him….

Did I?

Something inside me squirmed. Some horrible truth I wasn't ready to face.

_Oh, God, please,… why? I don't under-_

"What is _wrong_ with you two?"

My eyes flew open to see Bill spinning on his heel, his face puffy and ruddy with an angry purple-red color. He jabbed a finger at me, "You! You asked him to come with us! And you!" His finger swung accusingly over to Andrew. "You agreed to! So why don't you two just put your mongoose and cobra acts in separate cages before you get us all killed. You know - that thing you're both claiming you're trying to avoid?"

I blinked and had to look away, guilt burning down the back of my throat, while Andrew shifted and murmured what might have been an apology…or an excuse; I couldn't really tell – it was drowned out a sudden, piercing scream of terror.

~.~

Before the sound of Sarah's scream even died away we were already moving, a chaotic group of bodies careening around the wide-back end of the behemoth mini-van, ready to face whatever danger might have befallen our Sarah…only to find that there wasn't one.

Not really.

In the lead, Bill deflated a little, his shoulders slumping as he turned to the now sobbing girl and waved her into his arms. "Come on, Sarah," he murmured soothingly, allowing her to fling her arms around him and bury her face in his belly. "It's alright. He won't hurt you."

He had a point. Not even the most determined zombie was going to get up when half of its head was missing.

The corpse was slouched in the front passenger seat of the second car parked in the wide, two car garage – a rather boxy and all business looking SUV type. What was left of its pale, peeling forehead was resting against what remained of the blown out window. Still buckled in its seat, it was lean and angular, its paper-thin skin stretched taught over slender bones and pulled back from its mouth to reveal a leering, death-mask grin. That dark, haunting smile combined with the scooped appearance of its skull – like a bowl tipped on its side – reminded me of those jack-o-lanterns I used to love to carve for Halloween…only a few hundred times more disturbing and without the promise of sugary treats.

It was impossible to tell if it had once been male or female – its clothes were tattered and faded, rotted almost completely away, and what remained of its hair was just a few thin tangles of wispy dark hair – but given the dark stain splattered across the back of the headrest, the glittering shards of rose-colored glass scattered over the cement, and the fine spray of black along the side of the mini-van across from the destroyed window, it was probably safe to say the shot that had killed him or her had most likely come from inside the vehicle.

Meaning she or he had, at one time, company.

"There could be others," Andrew said suddenly, apparently coming to the same conclusion as I. "Others not as dead." His eyes darted upward, glancing up at the ceiling, and then they slid over to the far wall, resting on the short staircase and the plain gray door that could only lead into the house.

Automatically, I reached back for my bow, lifting it off my shoulder just as Andrew began to free his machete. Warily, we paused, eyeing each other carefully.

With Bill's words still ringing in my ears (and the guilt over my strange uncertain desires burning in my soul) I forced myself to look away first and instead busied myself with fetching an arrow and pulling my hunting knife free from its sheath. The latter I held out to the unarmed Bill, but he just shook his head.

"That wouldn't do me any good, you know that," he said softly. "I've never been…comfortable with that sort of thing." He nodded at Christy, and patted Sarah's back gently. "I'll wait here with them."

I started to hold the knife out to similarly unarmed Christy, but she too declined, echoing that she'd prefer to wait.

I didn't push the issue, just nodded acceptingly as I slipped the blade back into the sheath at my waist and knocked an arrow into place, before crunching my way over the field of glass and following Andrew up the steps and into the house of the dead.

~.~

Beyond the door was a small, intermediate area – a "mudroom" my father would have called it – empty save for a dirty, fraying rug and a pair of muddy boots kicked into a corner. Nothing to keep us, we continued with barely a pause, moving along the only path available to us – forward and through a second door directly ahead.

This door opened quietly, dragging just slightly across the thick, peach colored carpet on the other side. A wide, high-ceilinged corridor stretched in front of us: a pair of doors to our immediate right, an open archway through which the puffy arm of a couch was just visible was to the back left, and just around a gentle bend in front of us were the first few steps of a curving staircase.

We filed in silently; me sweeping my bow left and right as I watched the doors for movement – a rattling doorknob, a shadow passing through the space beneath the wood, anything – and Andrew, slightly crouched, turning carefully to watch the opposite direction with his machete raised. We may have reached an impasse when it came to our relationship, the previous moments of anger and hate and threats had proved that we would never be bosom buddies, but this moment, now, proved that under all that we were still human. For us, push come to shove, it was team human versus team zombie every time.

No matter how much we may have disliked our teammate.

Andrew jerked his head, pointing his chin back toward the couch room. I nodded and inclined my head in the other direction, gesturing to the stairs with the tip of my arrow. He responded with a quick nod of his own, then stepped back and turned away, moving quietly and carefully toward the room he'd indicated.

I watched for a moment, waiting for him to turn out of sight, then turned in the opposite direction and headed for the stairs.

It was a wide affair – the staircase – set with the same delicate peach carpet, though accented now by a handsome cream-colored runner. I avoided taking hold of the artfully wood carved banister as I made my way up (as much for my reluctance to stick my hand in the thick, grimy coating of dust as my desire to keep a good, firm two-handed grip on my bow and arrow) and kept my back to the wall, head craning as I ascended, hoping to get the jump on anything waiting to jump me.

Small clouds of dirt and dust fluttered around my heels, puffing into being with each of my steps, but little else stirred as I reached the top of the staircase and found myself in a corridor to match the one below. More thick carpeting, high ceilings, wide open spaces…and the same disquieting stillness.

There was a broad, bay window and another solid wood door to my immediate left and right, respectively, and ahead were a pair of doors – a single on the right wall, and an imposing double set directly down the hall. A quick look over my shoulder found three more doors.

_Eenie, meanie, minie, moe…._

I paused, uncertain, trying to decide where to start. There was no discernable movement, or sound (other than, of course, my own strangled breath and the fierce lashing of the rain against the window), to make the choice easier and while that should have been a good sign, it really only served to make me more uncomfortable.

The not knowing, and the things my imagination could conjure up to make up for it, was infinitely worse that any blatant signs of zombies could be. Behind every door was a lurking undead, waiting patiently for me to make a meal of myself. Underneath that coffee table by the window was surely an infected, ready to grab for my ankle with a bony, skeletal hand as I passed….

The hair on the back of my lifted, my chest tightened, and I had two choices: woman-up keep going or turn and run screaming from the house.

With barely a breath I made my choice, shifting my grip on my bow to reach out and grab the nearest door by the handle. Wrenching the knob, I flung it open, snapping my bow back up as the door swung wide and banged loudly against the wall behind it.

A bathroom – dank, smelling slightly of mildew, and scattered with the small droppings of rodents, but otherwise empty and still opened up before me. Pausing, I hesitated, then stepped carefully inside, minding my feet as I skirted around the toilet, wary of the cracked window above the tank splattering rainwater down onto a bed of green-gray mold. My reflection, hazy and yellowed and almost unrecognizable through the dirt caking the mirror over the sink, flashed by as I stepped up to the curtained shower – would a zombie have the patience to wait quietly, still, just beyond a flimsy plastic sheet for me? Probably not, but, just like checking under the bed for monsters before climbing between the sheets as I child, I had to know.

It took longer than it should have, but finally I was able to free one trembling hand from the death-grip I held on my bow. My fingers extended stiffly and I reached forward to brush them against the slick fabric, uncertain for just a moment, before curling my hand tight and ripping the sheet back. It whipped aside, the metal hooks it hung from rattling like gunfire, and I backpedaled, moving even as the curtain did to give myself room to pull my bow back up, to sight down the arrow's shaft-

-but the tub was empty.

Empty except for more thick growing mold and a harmless house spider that stiffened for a moment in the web slung beneath the tarnished faucet, but then continued tending its web, completely unconcerned by my presence.

My breath rushed out of me in an almost violent release of tension, leaving me feeling weak-jointed and dizzy with relief. Leaning back, I rested my shoulder against the wall, a small, slightly crazed laugh bubbling up….

Then I remembered how nasty the walls were and jerked upright, my laughter turning to a low groan as I twisted my head and saw the dirt and grime clinging to my clothes. Slapping at it with one hand, trying to brush away as much as I could reach, I felt low stab of irritation with myself; a reminder that I had no business in getting comfortable in here.

I still had the rest of the second floor to clear.

~.~

A cluttered, dusty office, a cramped linen closet, and a child's bedroom (complete with toys scattered across the rotting carpet and a coloring book still open, page half filled in resting on the bed) were all back behind the stairs; as empty and as safe as one could hope for in such times.

Behind the right-side door at the other end of the hall was a small bedroom. I got excited again for a moment as I entered and detected a scent similar to overly ripe fruit – the scent of rot and death – and noticed a lump, small but clear, in the bed. But a pull of the sheets later I had only the half-decayed corpse of some animal – a cat maybe – curled into a tight ball of fragile bones and gooey flesh.

Nose wrinkling, I tossed the bed-covers back over the sad sight and retreated from the room before my rising gorge added the stink of vomit to the sickly potpourri.

Now there was just one door left. The grand double doors that I had purposely saved for last – the intimidating set that I had guessed, and now confirmed by process of elimination, could only lead to the master bedroom.

After a steadying breath – or two – I carefully shifted my bow and took hold of one artfully molded handle, pressing in the little lever with my thumb. The latch released with a soft, somewhat ominous, _snick_ and with barely a push the doors swung inward, whispering over an expanse of dark wood covered in a thin, but undisturbed, layer of dust.

Moving slowly, I entered, taking note of the cozy sitting area (a pair of over-stuffed leather chairs and a handsome coffee table resting a top a light colored area rug floating like a little island in the midst of the dark wooden sea) before turning toward the wide archway on the left-

-and snapping my bow up, arrow ready to fly, as I saw, in the bed beyond, another body.

And this one wasn't some animal.

Curled under the blankets, head and shoulders bare it was clearly human…though small. Too small to be an adult….

_A child._

I had seen the bodies of children before and had even once, on one memorable occasion, encountered an infected child who had proved to be just as vicious, as hungry, as any adult zombie, but still I felt a pang of sorrow. I couldn't help but see Sarah in my mind's eye as I moved carefully forward. Her parents had given everything, their very lives, to see her get a chance to survive, and then we, the others and myself, had worked to make sure she kept on surviving….Where were this child's parents? Was that one of them down in that car in the garage?

What happened for them to end up this way?

_Don't try to write their life stories, Mooch. You'll just drive yourself crazy. Keep moving._

But it was hard not to wonder, not to question, and I lingered over the little corpse, seeking…what, exactly, I couldn't say. Some hope, maybe, that it hadn't suffered, that is was beyond hurt now, that it was truly, as horrible as it sounded, dead.

It was as pale and drawn as the body downstairs, and thankfully just as unmoving, but unlike the adult, this one showed no obvious signs of trauma. The position of the limbs and body was casual, almost relaxed, and taking account for the lump of fur and fuzz tucked into the crook of one slim, bony limb that looked suspiciously like a teddy bear, it appeared almost as if the child had simply lain down for a nap and…never woke up.

I didn't understand exactly how something like that could happen, but considering the alternatives….

_We should all be so lucky as to die in our sleep, peaceful and unaware._

My bow tipped down, the taught string slackening as I sighed softly.

I wanted to say something…but I could find no pretty words, no poignant verses. Just a sad, quietly mumbled, "I'm sorry."

If the child found that as pathetic as I did, they, of course, didn't say so, but something else did. Before the sound of my voice had even died away there was a muted noise, a wet feeble splashing, and a low…_hissing_, like a punctured tire slowly losing air.

Turning, my eyes jumped over the rest of the unassuming furniture scattered around the bedroom and landed on the door tucked near the west corner of the room, kitty-corner to the foot of the bed.

My boot-heels thudding softly against the wooden floor, I turned and took one step,…two steps.

Another splash, more hissing as I drew slowly closer. My heart took up the now more than familiar jack-hammering rhythm of fear.

Stepping up the door, I paused, shifting my weight forward, back, then forward again from one foot to the other as I tried to ready myself to move quickly, to ignore the tightness in my chest, to not let that pain slow me down…get me killed.

I took a breath, took hold of the doorknob, twisted…and pushed.

The door creaked inward, and a thick, invisible wave of noxious scent washed over me. Fetid, sickly-sweet; like a mix of milk and meat long gone bad and rotting together under a hot sun.

My nose burned with it, my throat constricted around the contents of my stomach as bile rushed up from my gut. I gagged and choked, but couldn't back down, couldn't look away….

The room was windowless, and so dark, but I could still make out the fine marble countertop with his and her sinks, the glass encased shower, more exquisite woodwork…and the grand sunken tub inside which what remained of a human body twitched frantically, splashing in a green-black soup made of its own fluids as the wild hissing I heard from the other room gurgled between the cracked teeth in its lipless mouth

There were no eyes, no nose – just dark holes where they should have been, and no skin…barely any muscle. It was nothing more than knots of ropey tendon and stained bone slumped in a bath of human slurry. Apparently incapable of standing, of lifting itself over the lip of tub, it could only flutter eagerly and snap hungrily in my direction.

And I could only stare, bow lifted but only half-drawn, transfixed by the horrific display before me…

"Jesus, that is _disgusting._"

….until a sudden voice from behind me had me nearly jumping out of my own skin.

I twisted, earning a stabbing jolt of pain from my ribs, before my brain was fully able to process that a, zombies couldn't speak and b, that voice sounded remarkably like Andrew…and by the time I did, I was already looking at him, a hand going to sooth my side as a flash of anger heated my face.

"Fuck, Andrew! Put a goddamn bell on!"

"Fresh out of bells, sorry," he replied, not particularly sounding it. "Maybe you should just pay better attention."

"Maybe _you_ shouldn't sneak up behind people while they're dealing with an infected."

One of Andrew's dark eyebrows lifted as behind me the zombie continued to thrash and hiss. "Is that what you were doing? Looked like you were getting ready to paint a picture to me." His eyes flicked away, over my shoulder, then back to mine. "Or maybe you were hoping to get a big kiss from this one too?"

My brain stuttered, my mouth falling open in surprise…then it snapped shut again as I caught up.

We were back to this again. The downstairs must have been clear, and this – this zombie, our last obstacle if our sense of camaraderie had already come to an end.

"Whatever, Andrew," I said flatly, shaking my head and turning away, back toward the undead. "Why don't you just go let the others know we're clear?"

"After you've killed it."

And so he was back to not trusting me again too.

I couldn't help but wonder, as I lifted my bow and sighted on the rotted upturned face of the zombie, if Andrew had planned all along to double check all the rooms behind me – as if he believed I would really leave roaming zombies to endanger the others.

What purpose would that serve? I'd be just as likely to get myself bitten or eaten.

_Besides, Wesker wasn't a zombie. Whatever he was – is - it isn't anything like this thing. What I feel for him….Doesn't matter. Because Wesker still killed and ate, at least partially, Daryl. And he planned, lead, the attack on the mill._

Except…it did matter. Because I still felt it.

Shouldn't. Hated that I did.

Hated myself.

But still, I did.

The zombie lurched, snapping its broken teeth, and I let my arrow fly.

Straight and true.

~.~

As Andrew went to free the others from the garage, I wandered in search of the kitchen, hoping to find something to clean my gore encrusted arrowhead. Yes, I could have left it buried in the skull of the undead in the upstairs bathroom, but with only a half-dozen left, I couldn't bring myself to leave it behind – regardless of how disgusting the retrieval was.

After twisting both knobs above the dish cluttered sink – I didn't really expect the water to still be running, but it was worth a shot – I started rooting noisily through drawers and cupboards, looking at least for a rag, or some paper towels. Something.

_Anything that saves me from having to go back upstairs to root through the closets, please, or from having to shred my own clothes._

From a distance there was the sound of doors opening and closing, opening and closing, and then there was Sarah's voice, excitedly calling my name.

A battered can of baking powder in one hand and my dripping arrow in the other, I turned in time to see her come barreling around the corner, her arms bowing and laden with clear, plastic bottles.

"Look what we found!" She bounded up to the table and opened her arms, the bottles tumbled and bounced onto the glass top, and Sarah snatched at them, turning up on end and lining them up neatly.

Able to see them better, I recognized them then for what they were - bottles of water – and my mood considerably lightened.

"That's great, Sarah! Where were they?"

"In the car. And there's lot of other stuff too. We found cans, we think-"

Finished with the water bottles she turned to look at me and stopped mid-sentence when her eyes found the red-black head of my arrow.

Quickly I tried to drop it down behind my back, out of sight, but…too late. She asked just as Bill appeared, his arms full with a broad, heavy-looked box.

"Is it gone?" the girl whispered, eyes still wide.

"Is what gone?" Bill echoed, setting down the box and looking between us.

"Yes," I told Sarah. "It is."

Still confused, Bill met my gaze over Sarah's head, brows cocking. After a moment's meaningful staring, his eyes lit with understanding and he nodded his head slowly as I jerked mine toward the ceiling.

He nodded again and shifted gently, just putting himself in-between Sarah and the doorway.

Just in case she suddenly decided she wanted to go exploring.

"So, what's all this you've found then?" I asked, changing the subject as I tossed the backing powder tin back in the cupboard where I found it.

"The motherlode," Bill replied brightly. "Water." He nodded at the bottles. "Cans of food-" he patted the box in front of him lovingly, "-camping supplies, medical products, a couple weapons…" he ticked the items on off on his fingers as he listed them.

"Books!" Sarah piped in, her smile back, if not as bright. "About reading animal tracks, and about poisonous plants and animals, and-"

"Can somebody give me a hand here?" called Christy, only her arms and bottom half visible behind another huge box topped with smaller cases – one white and emblazoned with a red cross and the other dark with the letters M. blocked on the side.

Bill reached and lifted the M.R.E box and Christy's flushed face came into view. "Good finding, huh?" she puffed. "Andrew's got more."

Sure enough, he appeared a moment later, with the barrel of a 12-gauge jutting above one shoulder and a rolled sleeping bag in each hand. "Still another bag out there," he added, stacking the rolls one atop the other in an empty chair. "And more cases."

"We should go through them all," said Christy as she finished setting down her burdens. "See what we can use."

I nodded, "Definitely, but we'll have to be-"

"I think we should stay," Andrew suddenly interrupted, folding his arms over his chest.

My voice broke away uncertainly for a moment as I blinked in surprise, but then I came back, head tipping as I replied, "What about Umbrella?"

"What about the rain?" he returned quickly as out of the corner of my eye I saw Bill, Sarah and Christy's heads turning to follow the conversation – like spectators at a tennis match.

"What about the bodies?" I pointed out. "Even uninfected they're unsanitary, and unhealthy, to be around."

"We can get rid of them – take them out and burn them," Andrew shot back. "Just because you don't wanna get your hands dirty doesn't mean the rest of us should-"

And from the sidelines came Bill, once more, a voice of weary wisdom. "This house isn't defensible-"

Andrew rounded on him, "I can't believe you're seriously going to-"

But Bill just held up a staying hand, soothing gently, as he raised his voice, trying to get Andrew to hear him over his flustering. "But! It won't hurt to stay…"

No better, I turned then too, brow furrowing….

"…for one night," Bill concluded, ignoring the both of us.

I pulled back, unsure, while Andrew continued to look mutinous.

Bill waited, apparently expecting more outbursts, then, once he convinced of our silence, carried on. "A few hours around the bodies won't hurt us, especially if keep our distance and leave them be. We'll be able to stay out of the storm and have time to properly check for supplies and plan out our next step. As for Umbrella…I doubt even they will be out on foot in this weather, and if they come by plane we'll hear them coming and have plenty of time to scarper before they even get close." He looked between Andrew and I, waiting another beat. "Can we agree to that?"

"Sounds fair to me," Christy offered gently, glancing sideways to her right where Andrew stood.

The latter left his arms tightly folded, but took a deep breath and looked down at his shoes. Thinking…or waiting?

"I…" I didn't want to stay. I didn't want to sleep surrounded by bodies. I didn't want to wait knowing at any moment we might hear the tell-tale rumble above us of a plane….If we left, if the distance between myself and the opportunity continued to grow, I wouldn't have any reason to worry about my treacherous desires.

But then – I wasn't particularly looking forward to wet clothes and soggy boots either.

"Okay," I said finally, agreeing with a small nod. "That's, I think,…okay."

Everyone looked at Andrew expectantly.

He didn't speak, barely glanced at me, but eventually nodded as well.

"Good," Bill proclaimed with a final nod to complete the circle of them coming from around the table. "Now, let's say we get to work."

~.~

…_I know it's a sin, but I trust that He will understand…. He let these horrors happen, set these choices upon us – surely He will be forgiving._

_Even if He's not, whatever waits on the other side, can't be worse than this._

It wasn't very long, and there wasn't a signature, but the little note told the whole sad story: a beloved husband and father, infected, attacking his wife and infecting her in turn; the wife, certain, if not understanding, of her fate making the fatal, tragic, choice after euthanizing her lover to murder their child (just a drink the note said, his favorite juice mixed with "something" from inside the cupboard) and then to shut herself away in the upstairs bathroom.

Slitting her wrists, she believed, would be the final answer.

Occasionally, I wondered if zombies understood, if some part of their former selves was still in there, trapped, useless and impotent, beneath the hunger and rage rotting their brains….

For this poor soul's sake, I hoped not.

Folding the note back up, I slipped it back into the book I'd found it in and returned both to the bookshelf in the hall off the living room. It wasn't my place to take it.

It wasn't for me to judge her.

Pausing in the doorway, I silently counted heads – four, bowed and quiet in sleep – and moved on, treading softly through the still and dark house.

We had worked through the day and into the night. We'd unpacked, divided, rationed, planned, and repacked. We'd argued, we'd compromised; we'd ran our heads in circles trying to think of everything, prepare for anything. We'd gotten as ready as we could be…and then we'd rested.

Slumbering in shifts, we eased our bodies and minds - though Andrew had tried to insist I not be left alone, he had succumbed to the instinctual need for sleep eventually and that was why I was unaccompanied as I let myself out through the fine wood and stained glass front doors.

Just because the rain had stopped - just because I wanted air, I told myself. Just a chance to let the breeze clear the cobwebs in my mind and the dust from my throat….

It had nothing to do with the urge to watch the skies, to see if I could pick out a great, mechanical bird from amongst the fading bed of glittering stars and the rising curtain of red-orange in the distance.

Preoccupied, the rustle of grass, the scuffling tumble of a misplaced stone didn't register at first. And then, by the time it did, it was much too late.

My head whipped around, I reached for my bow…but I was already staring down the gleaming barrel of a pistol leveled straight between my eyes.


	13. Chapter 13

A/n's: Three things about this chapter – A) It was a BEAR to write. Like pulling teeth. Every sentence was a fight. B) Because I had such a hard time writing it, it took forever to get done. I probably sound like a broken record apologizing for my delays all the time, but I can't stop myself. I'm sorry! C) It sucks. Not gonna lie. I'm aware that's basically one big plot device and I apologize for that too. I just, got stuck, and couldn't see any other way out – I _needed_ the events of this chapter to happen if this story was to ever get moving toward its final end game. I just hope ya'll will stick through and give me a chance to redeem myself.

Warnings: Swearing, violence, death.

* * *

Chapter Thirteen

The Moon

"_With Pisces as its ruling sign, the Moon is all about visions and illusions, madness, genius, and poetry. It's a scary card in that warns that there might be hidden enemies, tricks and falsehoods, but it should also be remembered that this is a card of great creativity, of powerful magic, primal feelings and intuition. Upon receiving this card, you should be warned that you may be going through a time of emotional mental trial; but that this time, however, can also lead to a period of great creativity, psychic powers, visions, and insight. You can and should trust your intuition."_

_-Thirteen, Aeclectic Tarot_

As the dark sky began to boil over into an orange-yellow dawn, a trio of figures moved along the rain-swollen river. Wearing identical black battle dress, they marched together, arms-width apart, their reflective masks cold and faceless as they alternately scanned the ground ahead and the dark forest beside them, their fingers never straying far from the triggers of the weapons they carried.

Removed by a small distance, a fourth followed behind, his hood removed, eyes staring sightlessly ahead at the backs of the others - the backs branded with the broad red-white logo, that ominous poison flower, of Umbrella. Taser rifle slung loosely at his side, he walked with his fingers jammed in his left ear, pressing down on the little receiver tucked inside.

"No," he responded to whatever he was listening too, his voice almost unnaturally loud in the early morning, post-storm stillness. "No, nothing definite."

One of the forward searchers paused, glancing back over their shoulder, but the man behind just jerked his head, urging them onward again.

"The storm's made tracking them nearly impossible. There's no footprints, no scenes of disturbance that couldn't have been made by the rain itself…" he trailed off, mouth tightening slightly as he listened. "Yes, Ma'am, the Chairman's orders were clear enough, but we can't bring in what we can't-"

He came to a sudden stop, eyes closing as he rolled his head back against his shoulders, popping the vertebrae in his neck in attempt to relieve the building tension there.

"Yes," he replied, as respectful as he could manage through gritted teeth. "Understood. We'll keep on our current heading. Daniels out."

His hand fell away from his ear and his eyes came open again, a heavy breath rushing out through his nose, as the trooper who'd looked back before did so again.

"Yeah," Lieutenant Daniels sighed, acknowledging his second in command with a little nod of solidarity as he slipped his rifle back into his arms. "I know, I know. But the puppet's got a point - it's either this or go back and face Chairman Wesker empty-handed."

….And they all knew just how well the Chairman took bad news.

_A fate_, Daniels thought, _I could happily go my whole life not facing._

~.~

For an instant nothing happened and I had a heartbeat, a breath, to simply stare and absorb - a bulky, gleaming revolver and a man, outrageously tall with ebony skin and dark eyes – and then…_everything_ happened.

He moved and I grabbed my bow. There wasn't time to aim, barely enough even get the weapon lifted before he was cursing and diving aside, so I fired blind, hoping to do enough damage to slow him down, or at least surprise him enough, to give me a chance to escape.

I clambered up onto the porch, ducking behind a narrow support column as I dug into my quiver for another arrow and recklessly cried out, shouting the first thing that came to mind.

A muted crash came from inside the house – had someone heard me? Was that one of my friends? Or were there more? Were the others already under attack?

Another shout.

Not from me, and not from inside, but from behind, from my nameless assailant who, when I dared to peek around the column, I could just see hunched amongst the weeds and overgrown rosebushes in the flowerbed.

I clipped another arrow in place and turned, drawing back the string as I aimed, properly this time,…and the stranger threw up his arms, gun pointed toward the sky, as the front door crashed open, wood slamming against brick.

Unwilling to turn my back on the stranger in front of me, my arrow steadfast on the bulls-eye that was his dark left eye, I was trapped, with the unknown rushing up behind me in a flurry of hurried footsteps. I could only wait, breath caught, heart pounding….

There was movement in the corner of my eye, a muscle jerked in my arm…and I almost let the arrow fly out of sheer surprise when a hand came down on my shoulder, a voice hissing in my ear.

"You alright?" Bill whispered harshly, fingers digging into my skin as Andrew appeared - shotgun raised against his shoulder, eyes sighted down the barrel – and moved onto the veranda steps to get a good clean line on the interloper.

"Drop it!" Andrew shouted and I nodded, finally exhaling a long breath from my burning lungs, as the unknown man lowered one large hand, palm out.

"Alright, alright…" Despite the tension, the seriousness of the situation, the man's voice held a smooth, confident quality to it – he was trying to soothe, trying to defuse the hostility that was a mere heartbeat from bloodshed. "Easy now. Let's just…everybody calm down." His gun hand slowly lowered, I tracked it with my arrowhead and saw Andrew's shotgun barrel do the same, but he didn't put it down as he was told; he opted, instead, to point it safely at the dirt and keep it in a firm, ready grip. "I don't mean any harm, I just-"

"Didn't your mother ever teach you that it's rude to come sneaking up on people?" I challenged, eyes straining as I tried to watch his face and his gun hand at the same time.

Surprisingly, his mouth twitched, just a hint of amusement, as his eyes danced sideways and met mine over the razor's edge of my arrowhead. "I'm sorry if I scared you, but, in all fairness, it didn't seem to affect your aim much."

As he reached up to touch his ear then, I noticed for the first time a thin trickle of dark wetness oozing down his throat and I couldn't help but feel a little proud, and a tad amused, even as my arrow began to tremble with the fatigue in my bow arm.

"Just imagine what I can do when I'm not scared shitless," I told him carefully, trying to keep my tone light, but promising, as the burning in the muscles of my arm forced me to lower my bow and release the string, bringing aching relief.

I was willing to play nice if he was, but I still wanted him to know I was fully prepared to fight back if he wasn't.

His eyebrows twitched as he slanted me a sideways look and replied, "Pass. I have already have nightmares enough, thanks."

"Make room for another," came Andrew's voice, cold and flat, still holding the stranger pinned through the shotgun's sights. "She's not the one you have to worry about."

The man's attention shifted, so did mine, but before I could give voice to the spike of angry heat in my chest, Bill's hand on my shoulder squeezed.

Right.

I bit my tongue and pushed the emotion away.

Now was not the time to display a divided front.

"Name," Andrew demanded. "And how did you find us? What do you want?"

"What? No 'please?'"

Andrew took a quick step closer, face darkening into a menacing mask as his grip on the weapon in his hands tightened.

Both of the stranger's hands came up then, palms out, gun pointed toward the sky, gleaming barrel winking in the bloody sunrise as he leaned back. "Whoa now – take it easy. It was just a joke. Name's Luther. Luther West. I-"

"_The_ Luther West?"

Twisting, I found the source of the breathless, incredulous voice in the doorway; Christy, whom I hadn't even known was there, was leaning over the threshold and craning to get a better look while Sarah peeked warily around her waist like a pale, red-headed gremlin.

The man who called himself Luther pushed up onto the balls of his feet, adding a couple inches to his already considerable height, and leaned as well, trying to catch a glimpse of Christy in return.

"Yes, Ma'am." He smiled, a handsome, almost boyish display of teeth, and dropped back on his heels. "The one and only."

Christy came forward, dragging Sarah along like a reluctant human tail until she detached herself suddenly and found a safer hiding place behind Bill, "No shit?"

A laugh. "No shit. I take it you'r-"

Her face was alive with excitement, eyes shining. "The Lakers are my team! My whole family's! My brother and I, we…" Then, as quick as it had come, the expression died, chased away by some dark memory that crept into her eyes. "We never missed a game."

"Sounds like you had a pretty awesome brother," Luther said kindly. "You'll have to tell me about him."

Christy sniffed, and reached up with one hand to swipe at her wet cheeks as she glanced round at the rest of us – watching on silently, all sporting various expressions of uncertain confusion – and hiccuped exasperatedly at Andrew. "Oh, put the gun down, Andrew. It's Luther West." She looked back at Bill and I – I raised an eyebrow, Bill blinked and lifted his shoulders helplessly. "He used to play for the Los Angeles Lakers."

Luther waved helpfully.

"He's not going to hurt us. Are you?"

"Hadn't planned it." And then, as if to prove what he said, he tucked his weapon into the waistband of his pants, leaving both his hands empty and clear. "And it's not my intention."

For a long moment no one said anything, then, because someone had to, I - despite the irony - shifted to stand next to her, and asked quietly over her shoulder, "Christy, are you sure?"

She nodded determinedly. "Yes," she glanced looked back at me, "I'm sure." Then, to Luther, "Come in, we've got water, and some food, and you can tell us how you got here."

She waved him forward, encouraging, as she turned to lead the way back into the house, and Luther, grinning and murmuring his thanks, stepped to follow-

-and Andrew noisily, pointedly, pumped his shotgun, bringing both them to a halt.

"Keep your hands where I can see them," he warned coldly before, finally, bringing the weapon down.

Luther arched a dark brow, then deliberately raised his hands – finger splayed – as he crossed the rest of the yard and mounted the stairs behind Christy, who for her part took the time to level a sharp look at Andrew as he fell in behind Luther before turning inside.

Bill peeled Sarah from his hip and ushered her forward. With a weary sigh I moved to follow – but before I could take a step, Bill was taking hold of me again, this time around the elbow.

"Are you sure you're alright?" he asked again, eyes searching mine insistently. "You gave us quite the scare. The way you shouted, we thought…"

I couldn't help a little smile, and gave his hand a reassuring pat, "Sorry, Bill. I didn't mean to worry everyone, I was just – surprised. If I'd been thinking, I'd have tried to find out who he was instead of just screaming."

Bill's brow furrowed and for a moment he just looked at me. Then, "It's not _that_ you screamed," he said carefully. "It's _what_ you screamed."

I tried to replay the memory back in my head, but I came up nothing, and I felt my smile fade into an expression like his. "I…I'm sorry, Bill." I shook my head. "I don't-"

"You screamed _his_ name – Wesker's. We thought he was here."

My insides went cold, my heart shivered to standstill.

I'd done…what?

My mouth worked, but nothing came out. What could I say? I couldn't tell him the truth. I couldn't tell him that, in spite of everything, despite the things I knew he'd done, I couldn't shake him – that something deep down, something I didn't understand, something that scared me, called for him…needed, wanted….

"You…you were just confused, right?" Bill suggested. "Scared."

His voice was light, easy; but his fingers tightened on my arm - just the way Daryl's had done when he'd seen that I wasn't who he thought I was, when he'd begun to realize that it was already too late….

"Yeah." I nodded slowly, swallowed thickly – and tried to tell myself that's all it was. That the rest was just…my imagination. I just needed time. "I'm sure that was it. I was just – scared, and tired. No big."

I'd get over it.

It'd be okay.

There was nothing wrong with me.

~.~

After hours of hiking with nothing but the crunch of their footsteps and the constant rush of moving water (which made him want to piss every five minutes) to keep them company Lieutenant Daniels was pleased as a pervert in a porn shop when one of his team suddenly raised their hand in the closed-fist "halt" gesture.

Anything to break up the monotony.

"Ahead, ten o'clock - where the water meets bank," the solider said over the com, his voice slow and robotic in Daniels' ear.

The Lieutenant scanned, eyes narrowed, up the bank slowly, moving his gaze right to left and back again.

He frowned. "And just what am I supposed to be-"

Another voice cut across the com, softer, but just as mechanical. "I see it. Yellow, Sir. In the water."

Daniels' looked again and this time saw it as well – a dollop unnatural color winking at them from under the murky water lapping at the river bank; a neon bright yellow.

Mankind's favorite cautionary color.

He shifted his rifle in his arms and nodded. "Retrieve it."

They moved as one: two turning to watch the trees, one watching forward, Daniels' spinning to protect the rear as they approached, as the solider closest to the water – the one who'd spotted the anomaly to begin with – crouched and reached.

Daniels' heard him splashing, heard a grunt of effort, then in his ear, "Sir?"

He scanned the way they'd come once more, then turned…and blinked.

It'd changed some – the fletching was cracked and torn, the nock missing completely, the arrowhead itself had chipped one razor sharp point – but there was no mistaking what it was. It was hard to forget after one of its twins had once been aimed at your face with harm, oh so definitely, intended.

It was the brand of choice of their very target.

And they'd found it in the river.

Daniels' turned his gaze to the swollen, angry waterway and wondered what the odds were of someone surviving a dip.

_Carry the one, divide by two, mind the decimal point…._

Not very damn likely.

Letting his rifle slip to his side, he reached up to push the little bit of plastic in his ear.

"Team B, Lieutenant Daniels speaking."

Beat.

"Get me Valentine."

~.~

After parting with a bottle of water and helping him figure out which end of an M.R.E. (or three) was up, Luther dug in – into the food as well as the thrilling tale of how he'd ended up holding me at gunpoint in the front yard.

It seemed wildly fantastic at best, down right impossible at worst: holed up with a small group of survivors in an abandoned prison while the remains of Los Angeles burned around them, surrounded on all sides by a sea of undead, no way out, no hope…until the timely arrival of a mysterious tanker ship in the nearby bay and a beautiful pair of warrior women in an Russian war plane…but, every now and again, I found my eyes seeking Bill's, or Christy's, as we stood around the table listening. Particularly when he told us just what the ship – The Arcadia – had promised via radio broadcast.

_No infection. Safety and security, food and shelter…._

A tremor raced up my spine when he said it, every time he repeated it.

It was exactly what Wesker had promised.

"It was Alice that figured out we could escape through the tunnels and into the sewers, and that they, in turn, would take us straight out to the ocean," Luther continued, apparently obviously to the mental pow-wow going on around him. "The others got through, but I was bringing up the rear…and before I get out of the tunnels, I was grabbed by some of those things." He pushed some of his military quality mush around with his fork for a moment. "By the time I was able to get free, they were already gone and the ship was too far out for me to flag down."

If the others were thinking the same thing I was, they didn't say it. Instead Bill prompted gently, "So, how did you find us? Los Angeles is, forgive me, quite the hike from here."

"I remembered talking with Alice and how we agreed that the Arcadia was probably traveling along the coast, picking up survivors as it went, and I figured, if they keep to that plan then that'd probably my best bet for finding them again," he explained simply with a helpless roll of his shoulders.

"You're a bit far from the coast now though, aren't ya?" Andrew challenged, not even bothering to disguise his sneer.

Luther paused, studying Andrew silently for a moment, then he dropped his fork completely and leaned back in his chair. "I heard the planes, the gunfire, I thought…."

"You hoped it had something to do with your friends," Christy supplied for him quietly when he trailed off.

He nodded and touched the end of his nose with one finger.

I glanced at Bill again and, while I chewed my lip thoughtfully, he said, "It might have."

Luther's head spun around to look between us with dark eyes. "What do you mean?"

Now it was Bill's turn to look at me.

"We – we heard the same thing, Luther," I began carefully. "About a safe place with no infection, with food and shelter enough for all of us. Only, it turned out not to be such a good thing. We…were lied to."

"It was a trick," Sarah added softly from where she sitting on Luther's right, studying the tattoo in his bicep with surreptitious fascination.

"A trap," Bill agreed.

Luther's eyes darted from one, to the other, and back to me, growing wider with everything we said.

"He – _they_," I correct quickly, ignoring the sharp and uncertain looks Andrew and the others gave me when I suddenly decided I didn't want to talk about Wesker. "Didn't so much as want to help as…"

"Hinder," Bill offered, apparently agreeing to let the worried expression he'd turned on me pass.

"They wanted to hurt us," Sarah finished, ramming the point home with a child's simplicity.

Luther looked around at all of us again then, once he saw that we were all in agreement, shook his head and pushed back from the table to stand with us. "No," he said flatly. "You're wrong. Alice wouldn't do that."

"There used to be sixteen of us," Christy told him. "We're all that's left. Because of them. I saw them shoot my friend Amy."

For a just an instant, when Christy said Amy's name, I was back, back amongst the blood and the screams and the gunfire, but then I blinked and the kitchen was back and I had only a rush of goose-flesh to remember the moment by.

"I'm not denying that something awful happened to your friends," Luther insisted. "And I'm sorry it did, but it wasn't Alice. Wasn't the Arcadia. Alice wouldn't have done everything that she did, wouldn't have risked her life to get us there if she didn't think it was legit."

"Maybe she didn't know," Bill suggested. "We didn't."

"Some of us didn't," Andrew corrected darkly.

Paying Andrew no attention, Luther just shook his head again. "Alright, look – thank you, for the food and the water, I appreciate it. But, I'm looking for my friends, and nothing's going to change that." He inclined his head toward the living room. "If you'll let me rest, just for a bit, I'll be on my way after that and we can all pretend this never happened if that's what makes you happy."

There was another long set of looks around the table, then I nodded. "Of course. Sarah-"

The girl sat up, looking expectant.

"-will you get him a blanket from one of the packs, please?"

She nodded, "Yep," and scooted off her seat, beckoning Luther after her with a little, "this way" gesture.

Luther's shoulders had barely cleared the room before Andrew started.

"Good riddance. We don't need anyone who's too stupid to listen to-"

"I wanna go with him."

Christy's voice was barely above a whisper, but that's all it took to stop Andrew in his tracks.

"What?" he snapped, as Bill blinked in surprise and I looked down at my shoes, eyes closing as I worked up the nerve to say the words forming my mind.

She sat up a little straighter and folded her hands neatly in front of her. "I want to go with him," she repeated calmly, chin set determinedly.

"Me too," I added quickly, before anyone could say anything else.

When I finally opened my eyes and looked around the table: Christy looked pleased, Bill was staring at me in a frighteningly similar way to the way he had back out on the porch, and Andrew was just beginning to bare his teeth in a snarl.

And I reached for Luther's vacated seat, settling into it just as Andrew cut loose.

_Might as well get comfortable, Mooch. You're in for a long one today._

~.~

After two days of waiting, Wesker's temper was not something to be trifled with. He was not, after all, a patient man.

Nor a forgiving one.

So when the teams finally returned, with nothing to show but a single, useless arrow, only a complete fool should have been surprised by the result.

"Tell me, Lieutenant," he said, a small muscle twitching rhythmically in his jaw as he slowly rolled the arrow's scratched shaft between his fingers. "Have I wronged you in some way?"

Daniels blinked, shifting just slightly where he stood in front of Wesker's desk, taken momentarily aback by the unusualness of the question.

"Sir?"

"Insulted you somehow?" he clarified, the carbon between his fingers bending and threatening to snap as his grip tightened.

"Sir, I don't-"

Wesker slapped the arrow down onto his desk, causing the computer monitor and the paperweight next to it to jump in response, and he turned his gaze on Daniels just in time to watch the way that useless excuse for a solider blanched, color draining away like water down drain after the plugged had been pulled. "Because I just cannot believe that one can be so incompetent by accident."

Daniels' attempted to swallow, but ended up choking on it.

As he coughed and sputtered, Wesker stood and began to stalk around his desk, leaving the arrow behind.

"I gave you simple, clear orders. Orders you assured me you understood."

With every word Wesker stepped closer, until he and Daniels' were face-to-face, until he not only smell the man's terror, but hear his heart beating in frantic time to the twitching in his hands.

"And yet, you've managed to fail again."

"Sir," Daniels tried, voice tight, eyes desperate. "I…I apologize, Sir. But – all the evidence – it truly appeared that no one could have survived-"

Wesker turned his head, just a fraction, watching Daniels' out of the corner of his eye as he snarled at the silent third party still standing obediently where she'd been left.

"Get out."

Like a good little pet, she immediately turned and marched out, the automatic door whispering closed behind her and leaving Wesker alone with his…_disappointment_.

"Sir, please, I didn't-"

Begging.

Pathetic mewling.

Wesker's lip curled, an insidious show of strong teeth, and the whining little worm didn't manage another word before his hands shot out, wrapping about the soldier's head and twisting.

_Snap._

Daniels' body jerked, a quick jig as nerves fired their last, and then went still; his eyes going glassy and vacant.

Wesker almost dropped him, prepared to leave him like the slab of worthless meat he was for Waste Disposal to deal with…but then, reconsidered and pulled him closer instead.

The blood was still warm; and it had been so very long since he had fed.


	14. Chapter 14

A/n's: This chapter is probably gonna bore ya'll to tears…but it had to be done. We're spiraling ever closer to the end game (4 to 5 chapters at least, probably no more than 10) and it was high time I'd started writing like it. ;) So to speak. That aside, I do have a fun-fact bonus for you! In one of the scenes of this chapter a very famous poem is quoted, first person who tells me the title of poem (brownie points if you can tell me the author as well) will have an upcoming OC named after them. Let the games begin!

Warnings: Violence, swearing, sexual themes, gore, and whining…lots and lots of whining. *le cringe* Forgive me. (Had to be done.)

* * *

Chapter Fourteen

The Chariot

"_On its most basic level, the Chariot implies war, a struggle, and an eventual hard-won victory; either over enemies, obstacles, nature, the beasts inside you, or to just get what you want. But there is great deal more to it. The charioteer wears the emblems of the sun, yet the card's sign is Cancer, the moon. The chariot is all about movement, but is most often depicted stationary. What does it all mean? It's a union of opposites – opposing emotions, wants, needs, people or circumstances. Confidence is needed, and motivation; and this card can, in fact, indicate new motivation or inspiration. It can also imply, on a more pragmatic level, a trip."_

_-Thirteen, Aeclectic Tarot_

Four days.

Four days since we'd left the house. Almost a week now that we'd been living out of backpacks and sleeping bags, surviving on what we'd stolen and what we could scavenge.

Christy and Luther were still confident, even with the cold, the wet, the hard ground to sleep on. Bill was growing doubtful, I could see it in his eyes sometimes – that tired way his face would fall when he didn't think anyone was looking – but he was a man addicted to hope. So long as there was a sliver, the faintest promise, Bill would endure. Andrew was Andrew; still hateful, still boiling with anger and distrust, though to be fair, it wasn't completely directed at me anymore. He was just as happy to turn on Luther whenever he got the chance.

Jealousy, I suspected. Envy that Luther could command, lead…and being unable to convince the others to abandon Luther's plan to find the Arcadia and the mysterious Alice was the second time Andrew had failed to usurp control.

The first, of course, being when he tired to turn them against me. Tried to convince them I was a killer-in-waiting; a murderer-in-training.

A demon in league with the devil.

Not that I cared. Not anymore.

I had enough to worry about.

My ribs hurt all the time – swinging along the spectrum from a dull ache to a burning throb. The endless days of travel gave no chance for respite and the equally long nights, sleeping bags or no, hadn't helped either. No matter how carefully I checked, or how much time I took getting ready, I always seemed to find every hard stone, every jabbing twig.

Hunger was always there, an annoyingly constant reminder that our food was carefully, painfully, rationed. I hunted, when I could, but game was so scarce it was more an exercise in frustration than anything else. And, of course, when I did see something my sad handful of arrows had me second guessing my shots.

It wouldn't have mattered before, missing a quick, clean kill - but now? If death wasn't instant for my prey, I could lose it and the arrow I'd tried to take it down with.

I couldn't bring myself to risk it.

Of course, there was always the undead to watch out for. We hadn't seen many, but there'd been a few, shambling and staggering in the distance, stretching forth their arms as if to embrace us as we turned and beat hasty getaways - no sense using up our limited supply of ammo (and drawing attention to ourselves to boot) if running away was a viable option.

There had been one close encounter, not long after we'd left the house. Sarah had been refilling canteens at the river while I, a few feet away, weighed the pros and cons of trying my hand at bow fishing again. Out of nowhere, it had come up, like some great, pale fish breaching the water, grabbing at Sarah with peeling, rotting hands.

She hadn't even had time to scream before it was falling back, dropping back into the murky gloom with an arrow sticking out of one of its destroyed eye-sockets.

Shaking, whimpering, Sarah had scrambled back from the water's edge and I could only watch, comforting her with gentle pats to the head, as the body drifted away with the current – my arrow with it.

Sarah had insisted on sleeping in my bag every night since.

I didn't mind. Not really. It was nice to have someone close, another wonderfully human someone, and it was certainly warmer with both of us in one bag…but it didn't help my dreams any.

The nightmares.

The thoughts…about _him_.

Wesker.

He was always there, waiting. Whispering.

Promising things that chilled my soul; things that had me gasping in horror…

…and excitement as my heart raced, blood pounding thick and hot in my veins, my body coming alive under his hands as I pleaded with him to show me…begged him to take me….

Always the same, I'd come awake after, mind full of guilt and self-loathing, body tense and aching with unfulfilled desire.

I tried to tell myself that there was nothing wrong with me…that I was just confused. That it'd just been so long since I'd been with someone, felt connected to anyone or anything, that I'd latched onto him out of desperation, or lack of options, or or or….

But I knew the truth, somewhere deep down. Even if I tried to ignore it.

That voice got a little louder every day.

The soft, but insistent, actuality, that Wesker didn't just take my body that night, he touched something inside, woke some part of me I didn't know was there.

Something dark. Something wild.

Something I feared wasn't quite human.

Something I feared I wouldn't be able to control forever.

~.~

_I was dreaming again. _

_I knew that. _

_For only in my dreams could I be back at the Mill, gravel shifting and crunching beneath my boots as I crossed the wide dark rooftop._

_I knew it – but didn't resist._

_A strange, red-orange glow flickered around me, lapping at the raised safety ledges and completely hiding the sprawling forest, the parking lot, the river. There was a wave of heat, dry and suffocating, that washed over me as I walked and I could have been drifting in a boiling sea, the building my island; or floating inside a hot, heavy cloud…but I knew better._

_No water, no sky. Just heat – and smoke and ash, curling upward as sparks jumped and flashed, diamond-bright, before winking out…._

_The Mill was on fire. _

_I knew that too._

_I should have been afraid, but there was a figure ahead of me and I took comfort. I knew him._

_The height, the width, the hair pulled back into a hasty ponytail. The perpetually muddy boots, the t-shirt tucked into the jeans, the knife on the hip that was the twin of the one at my waist, the gleaming pistol in the thigh holster. The smile that appeared above the neat beard and below the warm brown eyes when he turned and saw me._

"_Dad."_

_He wasn't real. But my voice cracked anyway. I still ran to him, arms lifting, hands reaching-_

_-but then I was seeing past him, seeing down over the ledge into the seething fire and my hands fell away with a small sound of despair._

_Undead swarmed, blazing human candles, their painfully familiar features burning, popping and blistering…melting and dripping, muscle and bone gleaming through. My best friend from grade-school, my first crush, my college roommate…coworkers, neighbors, friends and loved ones; some lost years before the end, others after, and some not that long ago…._

_Daryl slathered up at me, his body mangled, his face horrible. He reached for me, hands grasping, clenching and unclenching as he burned._

"'_The woman that God gave him, every fibre of her frame; she can bring no more to living than the powers that make her great,'" my father spoke, soft, but clear. At my side, and inside, in my head._

_No escape._

_I wretched away, hands clapping over my ears, squeezing my eyes shut. I didn't want to hear…didn't want to see…._

"'_As the Mother of the Infant and the Mistress of the Mate; to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail-"_

"_Stop!" And suddenly I was screaming. "Stop it! Please, I didn't – I don't-"_

_I turned pleading, weeping eyes on my father, wanting to make him understand I hadn't known, that I hadn't meant for it to happen, that I wasn't…that I wouldn't…._

_But he was gone. And in his place stood Wesker._

_Tall and handsome, strong and confident. His slitted demon eyes glinted, flashing with power, his mouth split into a promising smile. He reached for me, his hands closing around my wrists, pulling my hands away from my ears and using them to drag me closer. We bumped – hands to chest, hip to hip, thigh to thigh – and I watched his head lower, felt one cool, smooth cheek sliding against my heated one. His breath feathered across my ear as his lips parted to whisper…_

_And suddenly pain! Sharp, jolting, low in my side!_

_And the flames around us roared higher with a burst of sudden static!_

_I couldn't hear Wesker above the noise, couldn't see him as darkness swept in, could feel nothing but the stabbing pain…._

And my eyes opened, as wet as in my dream, but with tears of pain rather than anguish. Gritting my teeth, I moved inside the warm cocoon of the sleeping bag, trying to shift away even as I blindly reached with one hand to push away the small, bony elbow that had jabbed into my hurt, possibly broken, ribs.

Sarah took the rebuke well enough, sighing sleepily and rolling away as much as she could in the confines of the bag we shared, while I wheezed and rubbed my side reproachfully.

The sound, or the movement, or possibly both drew a deep, concerned voice from somewhere out of my blurry sight.

"Sorry," it said, sounding honest enough about it. "Didn't mean to wake you."

I swallowed something pain based and mean and unclenched my jaw as I tipped my head back to find Luther, eyes alert despite the tired slouch he was in, sitting a few feet away.

The static that had soundtracked the last few seconds of my dream was coming from the small, black device in his lap – our survival radio. As I looked at him he fiddled one of the little knobs and the noise dropped to a gentle hiss.

"Don't beat yourself up," I sighed, head turning into a more comfortable position as I blinked my eyes to clear them. "You didn't wake me anymore than Mike Tyson here did."

Luther's responding smile looked genuinely relieved and the pain pounding in my side lessened to a dull throb. "Well, I hope we didn't interrupt anything good at least."

I blinked again, felt the phantom brush smooth, masculine lips against my ear, and decided to stay quiet.

Luther's grin widened, an eyebrow shooting up. "Did we?"

I busied myself with finding the zipper to the sleeping bag, noisily freeing myself.

"Was I in it?" he continued, maddeningly amused.

"Were you in what?"

Christy suddenly appeared just as I pushed open the bag and sat up. She had a canteen slung over each shoulder and third in her hands, cap twisting closed between her fingers.

I tried to ignore her as well.

"She was dreaming about me." Out of the corner of my eye I saw Luther nod at me. "Tell me this much at least, how many, or how few, clothes were involved?"

Christy's mouth dropped into a perfect "o" just a second before the corners of her lips started to turn up into a grin to match Luther's, and I felt heat again, this time in my cheeks and the tips of my ears.

"No, I wasn't," I told her quickly. Firmly. Then I looked at Luther. "And no, you weren't."

His head fell back with a deep, happy bark of laughter.

He didn't care one way or the other, the clown. He just liked to tease, to laugh. I knew that. But I couldn't stop myself. The more he talked, the more he pestered, the more I had to remember what my dream had actually been, the more I had to think about Wesker….and I didn't want to.

Not now. Not with an audience, at least.

I struggled out of the bag and woozily to my feet as I carefully minded my ribs. Sarah stirred again, but slept on. "Besides, even if you had been, we were wearing clothes. All our clothes."

Luther's eyes glinted, he looked ready to speak.

And I added quickly, "Not you and I. Someone else…and I."

"Hmm," Christy hummed, and I looked at her just in time to see her drum her fingers against her mouth thoughtfully. "Seems to me someone is protesting too much."

"Seems to me someone is asking to be strangled with a canteen strap," I fired back and both of them, Luther and Christy, roared with laughter – loud enough to get Sarah stretching and yawning and rubbing one sleepy eye with a small fist.

"Whas'goin on?"

"Nothing," I insisted, despite the chuckling pair of hyenas

Nothing wrong here. Nothing wrong with my head…my heart.

I scooped up my bow and quiver and slung them across my back as Christy smiled and held out a canteen to Sarah, offering her a drink, while echoing that there was nothing wrong.

They were just teasing me, she said.

"About what?" the girl asked, looking between the three of us curiously.

Before either of the others could open their mouths I turned away, shifting my bow and quiver uncomfortably. "I'm going to find the others, tell them we're awake and getting ready to leave."

And quickly I walked away, trying, but not quiet succeeding, in outrunning the secondary round of laughs from Christy and Luther while Sarah whined plaintively, "What? What're you guys talking about?"

~.~

I didn't tell the others about my dreams. My fears. I never did.

Partly out of fear – I could guess what their reactions would be – and partly because denial was how I got through the day. I soothed the fraying edges of my sanity by pushing it all to the back of my mind, into the dark corners where I could pretend it didn't exist. Where I could pretend nothing had changed, that I hadn't changed….

Where I could pretend that part of the reason why I had wanted to come with Luther wasn't because I was hoping he was wrong…wasn't because I was hoping Umbrella would be waiting, ready with answers, willing to take me to Wesker….

It worked well enough during the day, when I had the long hours of hiking and the burning pain that came with them to keep me occupied, but during the quiet moments – moments like this one when we stopped to break for water and a few minutes rest – those questions, worries, were right there, sweeping forward and taking over the instant I didn't have a something else to focus on.

Wrapped up in them, in the war within myself, I paid the others little mind, their movements and soft chatter like white noise – there…but unimportant.

Until, at least, Andrew suddenly exploded in fury, leaping to his feet as he screamed, "Do you have to do that?"

I jerked in surprise, the unexpectedness of it shocking me out of my private world of confusion and shame and back to reality. A quick glance around found my companions equally startled – even Luther, who, given the way Andrew stood and the direction of his glare, was the trigger of Andrew's sudden attack.

"All day every day. The same damn thing-" he waved his hands as he raved and following them I noticed the small survival radio once again in Luther's hands, once again spitting static, "-give it a fucking rest already!"

The moment stretched, broken only the by the soft hissing of the radio, Andrew's harsh breathing, and the uncertain looks I shared with Bill and Christy. Then Luther blinked and, with infinite slowness, cranked the radio's volume up until everything else was drowned by the screeching pops and clicks of the open channel.

Andrew's chin dropped at the clear challenge, one of his hands jerking rhythmically, and for a one quick, heart-stopping instant I was sure he was going to grab for the shotgun he'd propped beside him.

Instinctively, I felt my own hand twitch, itching to snatch my bow, to be prepared…but then with a flare of nostrils and a sneer of contempt, Andrew spun away, grabbed his things and stalked away.

After another beat of extended silence, Christy shifted and snorted in the direction he'd gone. "What? Does he expect the Arcadia to just fall out of the sky? No effort necessary?"

Bill half-sighed, half-shrugged and stood, reaching for his bag with one hand and Sarah with the other, "Come on then. I was starting to get too comfortable anyway."

Sarah took Bill's hand and together they moved after Andrew, Christy falling in a few steps behind as she stuff her canteen back into her pack and noisily zippered it closed. As I climbed to my feet and began to lift my own numerous responsibilities back upon my shoulders, I glanced at Luther.

"You know, I should probably thank you."

Switching the radio off, Luther looked up, an eyebrow arched curiously.

"With you around he's too busy being an ass to you to worry about torturing me anymore."

He laughed, shaking his head as he turned to carefully tuck the radio back into his pack before closing it and slipping onto his shoulders. "Happy to be of service." He stood and picked up my bow as I struggled to comfortably position my bag and quiver. "Though I have to ask…what'd you do? Cheat on him with his brother or something?"

My hands faltered on the straps of my bag, quiver bouncing painfully against my side as I stared at him.

He just grinned and held out my bow, waiting.

"No," I said after a moment, anxiously re-positioning the pack and quiver on my shoulders. "No, I didn't sleep with his brother. I killed him."

Luther blinked, smile sliding under a mask of uncertain confusion as I took my bow.

"Ask him," I told him, turning away. "He'll tell you."

_I'm a monster._

~.~

_A puddle of silk slid, cool and gentle, over my bared skin – hands, hot and hard, followed its wake._

_The difference was shocking. Thrilling. My nerves sizzled, my back arched, wanting more._

_A rough chuckle, low and deep, vibrated against my throat and those hands squeezed, long fingers kneading sensitive secret places._

_"Say it." Strong teeth nipped sharply, a tongue like warm velvet soothed. "Tell me."_

_My body so tight…so hot…_

_Gasping in frustration, I reached out and my fingers found smooth skin, taught, rippling muscles. My nails dug in as I begged, "Please."_

_Open-mouthed kisses landed on my shoulder with a growl. "You know what I want. Give it to me – say it!"_

_I cried out, shifting, pressing closer blindly as I felt that thick, hard length moving against me; so close…so ready…._

_"This is where I belong," I panted desperately, twisting my hips. My _head_ turned, found a smooth, lightly stubbled cheek. "With you."_

_That cheek moved, slipping away to be replaced by firm, masculine lips that whispered against mine. "To me."_

_"To you," I echoed, reveling in the feel of that mouth, in the familiar taste teasing across my taste buds._

_Hands gripped my hips hard, bruising in their strength. "Mine." _

_Pain and pleasure blurred, boiled together in my veins, drove me higher. "Yours." _

_Then I was being filled, body stretching to welcome him home as the empty, hollow places in my soul, my heart, rejoiced – whole again at last!_

_His teeth found my shoulder again, biting down, pinning my body in place as his body flexed, began to move…and something warm, wet, burst free and ran over my skin, racing down between our bodies – sliding, sticking…._

_Blood. My blood._

_I cried his name, held on tighter, dug my nails deeper and let my head fall back._  
__

_**Take it. **__I urged. __**Take it as you take me.**_

_His tongue flicked, lapping, and his throat worked, suckling._  
__

_**His. Only his.**_

_Our bodies grinded, slapping together hungrily, my pleasure built…built…higher…tighter…!_

_I saw the edge, felt it, and was ready to go over it, ready to go wherever he'd lead-_

_-but I was suddenly jerking away, pulling out of his arms…_

…as my eyes opened, body and mind restored to the waking world by the hand frantically shaking my shoulder.

My eyes darted, confused for just a moment, then I jerked, twisting to find Sarah looking down at me.

"Come on!" she urged. "Hurry! Mr. Luther's found something!"

I blinked, nodded, but didn't dare speak. My heart was still racing, my lungs breathless…I didn't want anyone else to know, couldn't let them find out why.

But if Sarah found it odd, she didn't say so. She merely urged me to hurry again then scrambled away in the direction of a cluster of pale, jittery beams of light.

Flashlights.

As I moved, sitting up and freeing myself from the sleeping bag, the lights darted and I saw faces: Christy's, her eyes wide and bright, Bill, his lips twitching as he whispered couldn't hear, and Andrew, looking very much like he'd socked soundly in the gut.

Finding my feet I hurried over and pushed my way into the tight knot to find Luther, sitting on his sleeping roll, Sarah on her knees beside him. In his lap, as always, was the survival radio…only this time instead of the usual burst of hazy static a voice was speaking, clear and calm.

"-degrees North. There is no infection. Repeat, there is no infection. We offer safety and security, food and shelter. If you are out there, we will help you. There is hope."

I looked at Luther, feeling my own eyes widening, the heat and tension still rolling inside me from the dream suddenly broke, lessening, as something new blossomed in my chest.

In response he nodded, his dark eyes bright, slightly wet. Happiness? Relief? Maybe both. "It's her. It's Alice."

The message began to replay and I got to hear the part I'd missed – the declaration that it was the Arcadia, the rambling sequence of numbers that designated their location.

"Where?" Christy gulped, sound as breathless as I'd felt moments ago. "Where is that?"

Bill turned quickly, running back to his sleeping bag. He yanked at his bag, dug inside…and a moment later he was hurrying back, shaking open a map as he sank down to the ground with Luther and Sarah. Christy and I followed, her reaching for one edge of the map, I, the other, holding it for him as he swept his flashlight beam over the United States.

Only Andrew remained upright…apparently still too shocked to do anything other than watch mutely.

"We're here," Bill said, putting one finger on the coastal edge of California. He held out his flashlight and Luther took it, freeing Bill's other hand to trace over the map. "They're….here!"

I glanced at the distance key in the corner by my hand, judged the distance between Bill's pointing fingers…and felt my heart drop.

"Three days, maybe four, from here."

Bill's face fell, "They'll leave before we can get there…we'll never make it."

"We don't know that," Luther insisted, looking between us, and even glanced up at Andrew. "Maybe they just got there, maybe-"

"Or maybe they've been there a week already and are planning on leaving first thing in the morning," Andrew suddenly said, speaking for the first time. He echoed, "'We don't know.'"

"And," I added softly, despite how weird it felt to suddenly be in agreement with Andrew after all our fighting, "we don't have any way of contacting them to ask them to wait."

Christy jerked, "Wait!" And she leapt to her feet. As Bill had done before, she ran over to her sleeping bag and grabbed her bag. Coming back, she yanked it open and started pulling things out: water canteen, first aid kit, ziplock bag of matches, two MRE's…then a small, familiar bit of ugly yellow.

One of our old walkie-talkies.

She thrust it out with a grin. "I had one on me, that day at the Mill. I was supposed to go on patrol right before…" she shook her head. "Anyway, with just one there wasn't a whole of use for it, so I didn't think it mattered, but now, now that we know their frequency…" her flashlight beam played over the radio in Luther's hands.

"If we get closer, we can talk to them!" Sarah exclaimed brightly, putting two-and-two together an instant faster than the rest of us.

"Unless, I'm right," Andrew pointed out. "We still won't get close enough before they leave."

"So we leave now," Luther said, sighting up straighter. "Right now. And we try. It's better than sitting here wondering."

Looks were exchanged, surprisingly I even saw Andrew glance at me out of the corner of his eye.

"Traveling at night is dangerous," I said slowly, carefully. "It's harder to see the undead, not to mention other, usual environmental hazards…but, I think Luther's right. What other choice do we have?"

"I agree," Christy added, nodding determinedly. "We'll die out here on our own eventually. We should at least try."

Sarah squared her narrow shoulders, lifted her chin, and wrapped a hand around one of my wrists. "I'm ready," she said bravely.

"Me too," said Bill.

Five sets of eyes turned on Andrew.

"What about you?" Luther asked.

This was the point where Andrew would normally point out that it was a trap; that we'd regret not listening to him, and that, inevitably, it would all be my fault…but now he just nodded.

Maybe being outvoted twice in a row had taught him there wasn't much sense in fighting. Maybe he was beginning to hope too. Maybe he was hoping we'd be wrong and he'd get the satisfaction of telling us so….

My dream flashed in my mind again and I quickly pushed my speculation away as everyone began to scramble in different directions, hurriedly repacking and breaking camp so we could set out as soon as possible.

Surely, none but my own treacherous heart was toying with that particular possibility.

~.~

Half a day. A day. A day and a half….

We traveled like mad animals, stopping only when exhaustion and pain refused to let us go on and then never longer than an hour, maybe two, before we were up on aching, blistering feet and marching onward.

Two days. Two and a half….

~.~

Four days after they'd dropped anchor, all that stood between the Arcadia and shove off was one final raid of the surrounding countryside. They'd found no survivors, but they never passed up an opportunity to increase their stores.

There were, after all, a lot of mouths on board.

The landing party had been gone for just over an hour when suddenly a small, red light began to flash on the board, a cheerful _bleep-bleep_ bleating in time with it and Chris Redfield, who was on wheel-house duty just then, missed his mouth completely with the edge of his cup and slopped water down the front of his shirt.

"Shit!" His feet swung down from the console in surprise, shocked as much by the noise as the sudden cold leeching through his clothes, and spilt more water. Swearing again, he shoved the cup down out of the way, and jumped to his feet, swiping at his chest. "Damn it!"

He turned a glaring, hateful eye on the offending light and – stopped.

"What the…"

He checked, double checked, and swore again as he jabbed at a button and lifted the intercom mic to his lips.

"Alice, report to the wheelhouse a.s.a.p. Repeat, Alice to the wheelhouse a.s.a.p."

~.~

"Someone's paging us, trying calling through," Chris explained a few minutes later pointing to the still blinking red light while Alice looked on, hands fisted on her hips as she weighed the possibilities.

"Survivors?" she suggested, dark head tipping slightly.

"Possibly," Chris agreed. "But we've never had any contact us this way. It might be Umbrella, trying to flush us out."

Alice's smooth brow furrowed. "They aren't usually that direct."

"No, but maybe they're getting desperate. We did blow up their chairman and sail off into the sunset with one of their biggest toys."

"Losers weepers."

His lips twitched. "Just saying. I know I'd be a little desperate."

She exhaled heavily, watched the little light blink for a moment longer, then held out one hand, palm up.

Decision made.

Chris pressed the mic into her hand and flipped a series of switches. The light went out and with a sharp crack the line came open. Now, when she spoke, Alice wouldn't be broadcasting ship wide, but rather to whoever was waiting, listening across the frequency.

~.~

"This is the Arcadia. We're receiving your signal – who are you? Where are you?"

On one of our rare breaks, we'd dropped where we'd stopped, too tried to worry about silly things like getting comfortable, but with those simple words, we were revitalized, jumping to our feet once more to crowd around Luther who pushed in the button the walkie-talkie as he grinned, broad and relieved.

"You have no idea how good it is to hear your voice."

A beat, filled with the hiss of the open channel, then, "Luther?...Is that you?"

"It's not the Easter Bunny."

The voice coming through the radio's speakers cracked, suddenly strained with emotion. "We thought you were dead."

I watched his eyes close as he replied with a choked laugh, "Star power, baby."

"Where are you? We'll come for you."

"We're on our way to you, we just need to wait, give us a little more time to get there."

"Us?"

Luther looked up, smiling at us in turn. "There's six of us. All looking forward to hot showers, soft beds, and a couple cheeseburgers each."

"No onions on mine," I added just as Bill said, "With bacon."

"And an apple turn over," tacked on Christy.

"And milkshakes!" cried Sarah.

"Don't forget the fries," said Andrew, not to be left out.

Luther laughed and held up a hand to silence us when we could have gone on, "Get all that?"

And the woman on the other end echoed his laugh, soft and musical, "We'll do our best."

~.~

They promised to wait and gave us directions to a small harbor off a town where they would have a life boat ready. They warned that the town was infested, but that the entrance to the harbor itself was gated so if we could make it there, we'd be in the clear.

We arrived a day later, and after a taking few moments to go over the directions we'd been given again, we headed in.

Heads on swivels, weapons at the ready, we moved down side-streets, hurrying as quickly as we dared while trying to stay quiet enough to remain undetected.

The first infected we saw was leaning drunkenly against a dumpster behind a pub. Luther waved his hand and as it began to turn, jaw falling open at the sight of us, I let an arrow fly, putting it down before it could moan its hunger and give us away….

But was for naught, even as it dropped lifelessly to the ground, another appeared, slouching up from a narrow alleyway, and another, dragging itself from under the charred, destroyed remains of a car…their moans lifted, echoed, and grew as others unseen joined in.

Stealth no longer an option, Luther's pistol came up, a heavy shot cracking just as Andrew's shotgun boomed. A few zombies fell away, more took their place.

"Run! Go!"

Who screamed? I couldn't be sure. I was spinning, pulling back another arrow to take down the undead that lumbered into the path of our escape. The arrow tore through one bloodied cheek and it staggered, falling back, but didn't go down…but it was enough, we streaked by before it could right itself to grab us and Andrew, the last in line, brought his shotgun around in a great arc, smashing the stock down onto its head.

The skull popped like a rotten fruit, red-black gore splattering.

Luther led the way, rocketing around another corner, I followed, just in time to see him to put bullets through the skulls of two more infected.

"Out!" He shouted, and, as the others came up behind, he tucked the handgun away into the waistband of his pants and scooped up Sarah.

I took the lead, trying not to let the wild pounding my heart, the stabbing pain in my ribs, my inability to catch my breath, effect my aim as I fired another zombie…and another….

Two arrows. Two arrows left.

The knowledge flashed in my brain in bright, neon lettering. We weren't going to make it, there were too many…we didn't have enough ammo….

And then it was there – our salvation!

Christy streaked by me, reaching the gate first, snatching at the knotted rope holding it closed as I slowed and turned back, watching the way we'd come in case we weren't fast enough, in case the undead began to close in before we could get through.

Luther, with Sarah, and Bill went past, Andrew stopped to stand with me – to back the tide of infected.

They surged toward us, their arms (for those that still had them) outstretched, their moans blurring together into one great wail of desire.

Andrew's shotgun erupted again and the three closest went down, two permanently, the third twitched onto its belly and began to drag itself closer by its broken fingertips. Its fellows staggered over the bodies, stumbling, falling, but undeterred.

I heard Sarah scream and Bill cry, "Look out!"

Then I was being jerked backward, my bow flying from my grasp two rotted, mold speckled arms came around me, blood stained fingers curling into the fabric of my vest. The stench of sickly, sweet rot washed over me and I screamed, struggled, felt something wet and rubbery brush my ear-

-and the zombie suddenly fell away, body slapping against the ground.

I saw Bill, a large, bloodied rock grasped in a two-handed, white-knuckled grip. I tried to find the words to thank him through the panicked flurry in my mind, but there wasn't time, Christy had gotten the gate open and was waving her arms at us, screaming at us to hurry.

I turned back for my bow, but it was too far and there were too many zombies. The wall of hungry undead swept over it and it disappeared beneath their dragging feet.

Bill yanked on me, "Come on!"

I had no choice but to go and leave it behind.

Later, after we'd run the length of the dock, dived into the life-boat that'd been waiting for us and begun to speed away from the howls of frustrated despair, the mind-numbing terror began to let up, I could breathe again…and that's when the sense of loss crept in.

The heartbreak.

I'd left of piece of me behind, a piece of my identity, a part directly connected to my childhood and to the father I'd lost.

A part of me I could sorely afford to loose when I was already confused, when I could already feel myself slipping, struggling to resist the call of another, darker influence….

As the others began to laugh, to cheer and celebrate our survival, I looked on, watching the Arcadia rise up on the horizon and wondering, deep-down, if it wasn't already too late for me.


	15. Chapter 15

A/n's: First things first – yay and congrats to Colleen Sotac and Onitsu Blackfeather for correctly spotting and identifying the poem used in Chapter 14! It was indeed Rudyard Kipling's "The Female of the Species." Since they were both so clever they both get an OC in this chapter named after them (please bear in mind, lucky winners, these OC's were plotted and planned before hand so if they don't act/look/sound like what you want them too…sorry, but that's how it is. I need them to fulfill their roles).

Another note – Safsprin. This is an Umbrella Corp. drug mentioned as part of a puzzle in Resident Evil 3 (the game). I borrowed it for this chapter. (The game doesn't say what drug it is, so I took some liberty there, sue me.)

Finally, I've done the math. Unless I decide to write incredibly short or incredibly long chapters, we are only 3 chapters away from the end. Who's excited? :D (If only because the godawful _whining _is about to end?) X)

Warnings: Swearing, minor gore, even more whining. A lot more. Brace yourselves.

* * *

Chapter Fifteen

Eight of Swords

"_A woman is tied and blindfolded within a cage of swords. Ever been in a situation where you're afraid to say anything, so afraid that you second guess yourself, end up saying nothing and tying yourself up in knots? But, on the other side, speaking up is going to get you cut to ribbons? That's this card – the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" card. You're in a situation where you're afraid to move. If you move, you'll get cut. The ropes that bind you, the blindfold over your eyes, are your own fears, keeping you still, immobile; and the longer you stay, the more you constrain and entrap yourself. You must have the strength to endure the cuts. You must move. The longer you let this situation continue, the worse it will get."_

_-Thirteen, Aeclectic Tarot_

On one side of the glass, hot, bright lights burned down on lab 257 – the hottest viral lab in the whole facility – while researchers in full biohazard dress danced carefully around the occupied examination table.

On the other side, in the observation room, it was dark and cool and Chairman Wesker watched impassively, stony face, as ever, revealing nothing as the work inside the lab unfolded before him.

Drooling mindlessly – and soundlessly thanks to the precautionary muzzle it'd been gagged with – the infected on the table writhed slowly, twitching as far as its restraints would allow. Its cataract white eyes rolled from side-to-side, following the scientists hungrily as they moved in and out of its sightless gaze. What remained of the mottled, dead flesh on its skull had already been peeled away and now all that remained was to cut in.

Wesker couldn't hear the high-powered whine of the bone saw when it fired, not through the thick safety glass, but he could imagine.

The phantom weight in his hands, the purring spin of the blade and the sharp crack of split bone, the splatter and splash of blood….

His fingers jerked eagerly in memory and with a deep inhale he shifted his hands from their loose, easy place at his side and folded them behind his back as he schooled his mind to remain in the here and now where it belonged.

He wasn't a researcher anymore, the position was far beneath him now, but just occasionally he did miss it.

If only for the toys.

His lips twitched upward in amusement, just for a heartbeat, then they fell and went still again-

-just as the team inside the lab finally got through the biohazard's skull and the pulpy, red-black insides began to ooze out onto the table.

His eyes flicked up to the monitors hanging over the table, studying the up-close, in detail images they provided.

_Intriguing. Certainly. But is it natural mutation? Or a result of the new round of antigen testing? _

The possibilities turned in his head, theories arising.

Were they finally beginning to make progress?

He reached for the intercom, ready to order the taking of triple spectrum samples-

"Chairman Wesker."

-but was interrupted.

A quick, biting rage had his vision reddening and he turned with a snarl.

"I told you I wasn't to be disturbed."

A human would have recoiled and immediately begun to simper, but the Red Knight didn't even blink.

The visual representation of the facility's A.I. system – the holographic image of an adolescent male with a scruffy mop of red hair and a small diamond stud in one ear – merely stuffed his fake hands into his fake jeans and slouched, as at ease as only something with no life to value could be.

"Yes, sir. But you did also ask to be informed when Alpha 7 returned."

As quickly as it'd come, his anger melted. "When did they land?"

"Moments ago, sir. I have already-"

"Blackfeather?"

"-sent Blackfeather down to the weapons range."

"Then she was successful?"

The A.I. cocked its head, and if Wesker hadn't known it was impossible, he'd have said it looked almost amused, "It appears that way, sir."

"Good," Wesker replied, turning his back completely on the work ongoing in lab 257. "I'll meet with her now."

The Red Knight nodded, "I calculated as much, sir. She will be waiting, I'm sure."

Wesker started to let himself out of the observation room, then paused, and looked back. "Inform Doctor Brooks that I'll expect a full report on tonight's findings, with a complete viral workup, on my desk by morning."

"Of course, sir," the hologram promised.

Then, as Wesker turned and headed out into the hall, the door breezing shut behind him, the A.I. – its presence no longer needed – shimmered out of sight with a faint crackle of static.

~.~

Two levels above, Sergeant Tatianna Blackfeather, paced and sweated her away around the weapons range.

Mostly sweated.

She kept stopping at the long, dark case sitting atop a nearby workbench and popping the latches, checking and rechecking that its contents hadn't changed in the few minutes since she'd last peeked.

It was silly; ridiculous even…but she couldn't help herself.

In the last month she'd seen two of her superior officers fail in the line of duty and now knew only too well the punishment that awaited such…_transgressions._ Better to feel a little dumb and be safe, she figured, than be sorry and dead.

_Though I suppose if I gotta go, it would be nice to go before I hit the dreaded 3-0 next week. I know Anders is just __**waiting**__ for his chance to-_

"Something amusing, Sergeant?"

Smile twisting into a strangled grimace, Blackfeather choked back the laugh that'd been tickling the back of her throat and spun on her heel to face the chairman as he approached – as silent on his feet as a panther.

"By all means, do share. I love a good joke."

_And just as deadly as one_, Blackfeather reminded herself.

She snapped her spine straight and all but clicked her heels together as she saluted. "Apologizes, Chairman, sir. I was preoccupied. I didn't hear you arrive."

His sleek blond head tipped and she knew then what an amoeba felt like when it was under the microscope. "Indeed, Sergeant. I'd rather guessed as much, but seeing as I am here now, and you are suitably aware, perhaps we can get to the task at hand?"

A pass. A warning. Blackfeather knew one when she got one; and she also knew enough not to hope for another one.

With the chill fingers of Death playing over her spine, she quickly dropped her gaze like any good submissive beast and nodded. "Yes, sir. Of course, sir. Right over here, sir. I have it."

She gestured, then turned, leading him over to the workbench. Her fingers trembled, but she moved them quickly, unlocking the case's clasps and lifting the sturdy plastic lid before stepping back.

Aside, she watched, and waited, hardly daring to breathe.

~.~

For several long moments Wesker simply looked, eyes roaming over the elegant curves, the gleaming black paint, the bright Umbrella logo; then, slowly he reached into the case and lifted the sleek, dark weapon free.

It felt awkward in his hands, unnatural…archaic. The heavy Desert Eagle snug in the holster under his arm was more his speed.

It wasn't the same - longer, sleeker, a fine unblemished matte black rather than the scratched and weathered, camouflage patterned weapon she'd carried - but just as easily he could see, as he held it, how it would look with her. How her hands would wrap around the stock, confident and strong, as her nimble, deft fingers slipped over the slender shaft of an arrow and nocked it in place before smoothly drawing. Her eyes would glitter, her lips would part on a steadying breath, and she would fire.

And her quarry would die.

Like Diana of the Hunt, as pale and divine as the moon she patroned.

Beautiful.

Deadly.

His to command, his to possess...

Fingers tightening on the grip, his thumb stroked over the smooth, unblemished paint and he could imagine, perfectly, how similar her skin would feel: just as silky, just as fine beneath his hands-

-but she would be hotter, softer..._sweeter._

_And she will be mine - mine alone._

"Tell me, Sergeant. What good is a bow, without its huntress?"

His voice had deepened, darkened, and Blackfeather hesitated.

"Not…very, sir?" she replied slowly, carefully.

He turned and pinned the solider with a look. "Then I suggest you get back to work finding her."

~.~

Blinking against the choppy spray of salt water, I watched the Arcadia grow – no bigger than a child's bath toy at first, then suddenly, almost as fast as I could blink, it ballooned to blot out the sun, real and solid and bigger than I had imagined. We passed into its shadow, motoring toward the small docking point jutting out from the barnacled hull, and the temperature dropped.

I felt myself shudder – a sudden chill, a residual reaction to lingering adrenaline, or maybe something else…I craned my head back, trying to see up to the deck, but it was lost in the glaring halo of the sun.

Small. Insignificant. Overwhelmed.

A hand came down on my shoulder, squeezed. "We made it."

Bill was grinning, eyes bright, his face flushed with relief, and excitement, as he too looked up the towering tanker ship. He squeezed me again. "We did it."

He tore his gaze away from the ship to look at me and his smile faltered. Just a bit.

"It'll be okay now," he promised then. Fiercely. Determinedly. He meant it. Believed it. "We'll be okay."

_You'll be okay_, I read in his eyes. He wanted me to believe it too.

I looked away, watching the landing come up beside us.

_Okay for whom?_

Glancing up toward the deck again, I didn't know our rescue boat captain – Colleen, she'd said her name was - had tied us off until she suddenly spoke, her voice as bright and eager as her smile.

"Welcome to the Arcadia."

~.~

A rickety, rusting staircase flashed by, and a stretching expanse of sun-baked deck, and then we were inside and there were people.

Lots of people.

More than I had even believed could be left.

Men, women, even a child or two, they pushed past our little group, some too busy to concern themselves, but most taking the time to slow their pace so could they look and whisper, or, occasionally, in the case of a few brave souls, to offer a hand, a friendly hello and a welcome.

Sarah was suddenly at my side, tugging at my shirt, biting her lip as her eyes followed the form of a slim, dark-haired girl about her own age walking past in the opposite direction. She looked up at me, whispering something I couldn't hear, but could read on her lips.

_"Kids, like me!"_

For her, as always for her, I found a smile, willed myself to feel as excited, as hopeful, and I let her hand slip into mine – I even squeezed back, willing to hold even as I was held.

If only for the moment.

~.~

As big as the Arcadia was from the outside, it was somehow even larger on the inside. Almost impossibly so.

Colleen led us down endless hallways, down tight corridors, through huge storage spaces; a mess hall passed us by, along with a glimpse of knots of people sitting around long tables, laughing and talking. There were locker rooms, there one second and gone the next as we rounded a corner, and an endless number of living quarters – some clearly meant to be there, with space-efficient bunks built right into the walls, others were more make-shift, with cots and sleeping bags stuffed into available, if otherwise intentioned, rooms…I even saw people stretching out in some of the large metal shipping containers in the cargo holds.

Christy asked were we would be staying, and with a thoughtful bite of her lip Colleen replied that she wasn't sure.

Not that we should worry, she was quick to add. Alice always figured these things out.

Luther had smiled at that, as if recalling some private joke, and the subject was dropped in favor of other, more pressing concerns.

Concerns about things like the Umbrella Corp. logo I suddenly saw brandished, bright and blatant, on a heavy, steel hatch leading into a stairwell.

Startled, heart-clenching, it took me several labored breaths to unstick my tongue enough to ask…but by then Andrew had beaten me to the punch.

"Umbrella's here?" he turned on Colleen, ignoring her attempts to wave us through the doorway and up the stairs.

She blinked, big green eyes cloudy with confusion for a just a moment, before a sharp gesture from Andrew had her turning, gaze softening with understanding.

"Oh, that," she looked back at us, waving it off easily, "don't worry about that. Or any others you see. We ran out of paint before we could cover them all, that's all."

Smiling, she shrugged in a helpless sort of way and then nodded at the stairs again. "Shall we?"

There were more questions, from Andrew, from myself, but we followed obediently and up the stairs waited an all new sort of location.

Cleaner, sleeker – what could have been meeting rooms; what was definitely a wheel-house…and there, at the end of the hall, a heavy door set with a brass placard.

Captain's Quarters.

~.~

We filed in and I caught a glimpse of a salmon colored sofa, a low table, a shaggy pewter gray rug, and had a heartbeat to wonder if they'd come with the room or they'd been acquired…

…then I was back-pedaling, hurrying to keep from getting stepped on as Luther stumbled back with the force of the fierce hug that came flying, seemingly, out of nowhere.

One minute it'd been just us, and Colleen, then suddenly there was a lithe and long brunette with long-fingered hands clapped on Luther's cheeks as she beamed at him, storm-blue eyes laughing. "Luther, you bastard. I thought you were done for."

He steadied himself, and as he laughed back I sidled out of the collateral damage zone, "Oh, come'on now – you know star power never fails."

"Right, right," she patted his cheeks, then stepped back as she shook her head. "How could I forget?"

"Running for one's life tends to do that," came a new, male, voice and I looked just in time to see two more strangers arrive; slipping through a side door that I assumed the brunette had come from as well.

A man and woman, they weren't as forceful in their greeting as the first, but clearly just as happy.

The woman, a redhead with a frame slightly stockier than the brunette, smiled warmly; the man, taller than both women with a broad-shouldered muscular body and a crop of close-cut dark hair, extended a hand and shook Luther's, clapping the former-athlete on the elbow with his free hand as he did so in a move that remanded me of some old-world warrior's greeting.

The three of them – the brunette in the middle, the other two falling in at her flanks like rear-guards – looked nothing alike as they stood together; except of course for their blissful expressions…and the blue-gray eyes sported by both the redhead and the dark-haired male.

_Related? Siblings maybe. Or cousins._

As I made a bet with myself as to the odds, all three sets of eyes shifted and jumped over myself and the others – almost as if seeing us for the first time. Their smiles remained, but their eyes cooled, suddenly on the careful side of friendly instead of warmly welcoming.

I didn't want to judge them for it…but I did anyway, lifting my chin defiantly as the muscles in my shoulder blades tightened and straightened my spine warily.

"You must be the others Luther told us about," the brunette said. "The ones who helped him. Thank you."

Bill took a step forward, his voice hovering in those gentle, trustworthy tones I recognized as his soothing therapist voice. "Nothing to thank us for, we're all survivors, we're all in this together."

"Besides," Christy suddenly added, shifting a bit to see and be seen around Bill's shoulder. "He's the one who led us here."

Sarah, who had still been holding my hand, pulled away then to state, matter-of-factly, "He said you would let us stay with you, that…you would keep us safe."

The brunette was clearly in charge, but it was the redhead that sank down on her heels to meet Sarah eye-to-eye with a soft smile. "He was right. That's exactly what we're gonna do. I promise." She held out a slim hand, "My name's Claire. Claire Redfield. What's yours?"

Sarah stuck out her hand as well, took Claire's and pumped it up and down - a perfect adult in miniature. "Sarah."

"Well, Sarah," Claire's voice was lighter now, amused, "I bet your pretty hungry, huh?"

Sarah began to nod, "Really hungry!"

A light laugh. "Then how about we get you and friends cleaned up and checked out and getcha somethin' to eat?"  
Claire glanced up and for a moment our eyes locked. I felt my head tip as, unbidden, I wondered if we actually had a choice…then I shook it off with the wave of guilt that rushed over me.

What choice was I hoping for?

Food, a safe, dry place to sleep…that was all I needed.

_Absolutely. Nothing else. Not a man of power and confidence_ _who made me feel more alive than I have in years…a man whose mere memory, even now after everything I __**know**__ he's done - everything he would do, could do - still makes me want to…._

Firmly I clamped down on my thoughts before they could any further, before my chest could tighten around that damningly hollow place that had taken up inside me, and forced myself to speak.

"I wouldn't say no to some of that myself."

Claire's smile widened while the brunette leader stepped forward. "Then what are waiting for?"

~.~

Introductions followed quickly; the brunette turned out to be Alice, which didn't particularly surprise me, and the quiet male was Chris Redfield, which I did feel a bit smug about when he revealed himself to be Claire's brother. They promised us food, and hot showers, and even a change of clothes while they worked to find us a place to sleep…but first we had to go through a "check."

Which, as it turned out, was an incredibly uncomfortable head-to-toe scan by some medically trained survivor to make sure we hadn't come aboard infected. Every cut, every scrape, every open wound right down to the bug-bites was questioned – the healing bite wound on my shoulder earned me some particularly serious discussion. Eventually though, I managed to talk "Doc" down and got him to accept that it was just a garden variety, run-of-the-mill love bite…then the only thing I had to deal with (besides the odd squirming feeling that took up in my gut at the term "love bite") was the distant, thoughtful look he fixed me with as he, only too clearly, tried to figure out which of my companions had given it to me.

When he suddenly dropped his penlight with a flustered cough I knew he'd finally lit upon the possibility that it had been Christy.

Men.

We weren't long out of Doc's – capable – hands and back in our clothes when Colleen returned and, chattering amiably about rules and expectations, let us back down to the locker rooms we'd passed earlier.

Boys on one side, girls on the other – just like high school – Christy, Sarah, and I tumbled into stalls, stripping as we went, laughing and hollering like a trio of rowdy animals.

Truthfully, I'd never realized how very much I felt like one until the first blast of scorching water rained down over my head, plastering my hair, and the clothes I hadn't quite gotten all the way off, down against my skin.

Colleen warned us that we were on a time limit, water conservation and all, but I thought maybe she took pity and flubbed a bit…or maybe I just lost track of time completely as I floated to someplace gloriously like heaven. I might have even drifted away entirely if it weren't for the singularly grounding fact that I had to share what I would have normally preferred to be a private experience….

But it was easy to forgive once my skin was warm and pink and clean, once I had used the blade of my knife to shave my legs and underarms with smooth, confident strokes, in a small, if blatantly, vain gesture that had been dearly missed during our time traipsing through the woods.

Christy wasn't quite as good at it as I was, but she managed – just one small nick near her knee – and when she done, Sarah amused us both by taking her big step into womanhood and asking if we would show her how to do.

We happily showed her how to stand, how to center her balance and brace herself, and, guiding her hands with our own, demonstrated how to hold the blade and slide it delicately up her skin. She was shaky and uncertain at first, but learned quickly and I couldn't help but feel a little proud.

At least I'd managed to pass on one skill – however unimportant in the grand scheme it may have been.

Obligingly offering pointers and tips I was still sitting with her when Colleen returned, a pair of boxes in tow.

"Clean clothes," she offered pleasantly. "If you want 'em."

"You mean we don't have put these back on?" Christy asked, toeing her dirt encrusted jeans gently with one bare foot.

"Not unless you want to," Colleen replied, bobbed hair swinging as she tipped her head with a little laugh.

"Anything in cashmere?" Christy teased.

"Silk?" I added, unable to help myself as I mindfully watched Sarah pull my hunting knife up over her knee. "Nothing pastel. They wash me out."

"You guys are cute," Colleen chuckled, waving a finger at us. "I like you. You can sit by me at dinner."

"Hear that?" Christy glanced over her shoulder at me as she headed for the boxes. "We're already in with the cool kids."

"Wee." I checked Sarah's handiwork, then gave her knee an approving pat and flashed her a thumbs up. "Congratulations, Scout. You're officially one of the big girls."

She flushed with pleasure from the tips of her toes to the roots of her hair and beamed. "Thanks."

"Anytime. Now come on, let's go see if we can find something more fashionable than these towels."

Christy snorted. "Good luck."

She'd already opened and rejected one box, pushing it aside to look in the other.

Colleen shrugged, jerking her chin toward it. "Nobody ever wants those, but we always ask."

Eyebrow lifting, I crouched and peeked…and felt that sticky, dry-mouthed feeling glue my tongue still again.

Good clothes, made for hard work and combat – shirts, pants, a couple pairs of boots, and on top a vest, much like my ruined one. There was one of everything I could have asked for – exactly what I would have wanted - except…it was all branded.

Marked with the red and white, deceptively simple, blatantly eye-catching, seal of Umbrella.

On the designer's tags, on the thickly treaded soles of the boots, on the back pockets of the pants and the breast pocket of the shirts – they were everywhere, those small, familiar rosettes. On the back of the vest a large one stretched across the shoulder blades like a bull's-eye.

My own personal scarlet letter.

Before I could even stop to think about it, I was reaching into the box, palms grazing over the tight stitching, tracing the raised edges one trembling fingertip.

"I'll wear them," I heard myself say softly, as if from some great distance.

My body was there, functioning, walking and talking…but the rest of me was far away – longing…needing…regretting.

Hating myself.

"Are you sure?" Colleen's voice brought me back with an unpleasant crash and I found both her and Christy staring at me.

Even Sarah was looking up at me curiously.

Quickly, I licked my lips and nodded, burying my hands in the box and grabbing what I wanted. "They're just clothes."

Just clothes. Just Umbrella.

Just Wesker.

_Sure. Say it a few more thousand times and maybe you'll actually start to believe it. Just like everything else you've tried to tell yourself about him. He's a liar, a murderer, the mastermind behind the end of world; he'd kill you…you know, if he cared enough about your existence to bother – which he probably doesn't. Definitely doesn't. Remember that. You're too smart to fall for it – fall for him. He's evil, abhorrent, everything you were raised to detest and everything…_

…I'd come to want. Still_._

_Always._

Quickly, I turned away from the others as they slowly began to search through the other box of clothes, hiding under the pretenses of yanking on a pair of pants.

I couldn't face them when the truth, the horrible damning shame of it, was written all over my face.

~.~

Time slipped away from me – alternately stretching slow and torturous, then flashing by as quickly, as easily, as I blinked. Faces, and the names to go with them, blurred by. I heard them, saw them, and forgot them as fast as I learned them. I lost myself often; I would pause, just for a moment, to think, to breathe, and next I knew I was coming back (often to the lightly curious, carefully concerned call of another voice), surfacing from some distant, dark place I didn't remember falling into.

Sarah asked me if I was sick. Christy called it wallowing. Bill just watched, silent and thoughtful.

All applicable responses, I figured, when I allowed myself to actually dwell of them – justified even – but they didn't even begin to cover it.

_Desperate_, I would have added. _Disturbed._

I had guessed at it – that terrible secret truth that had been born inside me that night at the Mill – on some level, I'd even known it…but not like this. Not anything like this.

Something had tripped inside me. Maybe because of our arrival at the Arcadia and my subsequent realization that while Umbrella had been here, they weren't now, and I had missed my chance. Whatever _chance_ my twisted heart thought that might be. Maybe I'd been born this way. Unnatural. Maybe I was just tired of being alone, and tired of denying it. Maybe it was some combination of all of them….

Or maybe it there was no reason at all. Maybe it, I, just – _was_.

_Destined. Fated._

However I choose to look at it, the result was the same.

I had changed.

I couldn't resist the truth, couldn't ignore it, couldn't pretend it away. Not anymore. No matter how hard I tried. It stared me back in the face. It weighted on my shoulders every time I put on my new vest – every time that Umbrella logo stretched across my back.

I couldn't push it away; couldn't deny it…but I could fight it.

I waged a private, internal, war on myself. Arguing, reasoning, even pleading…begging. I called myself every cruel name I could think of, trying to snap myself out of it, trying to recall back the woman I had been, the woman I had always believed myself to be…

_Independent. Strong. Good._

…and then, when I couldn't, I would cry. Usually alone. Usually in the middle of the night, when the dark was there to hide the worst of my failure from prying eyes.

Sleep rarely came, and when it did, it was in light, troubled snatches. In stretches of subconscious controlled dreams that seemed to get stronger, darker, with each passing night.

I tried to throw myself into routine. I volunteered for everything: anything from menial physical labor like kitchen and laundry duty to the (what should have been) engaging piloting lessons Chris Redfield gave in the sprawling jet hangar on Deck 3 and the hand-to-hand combat coaching Alice offered in the training gym on Deck 7.

I tried to wear myself out, work myself into mindless stupor, so that I might tumble into the sleep of the blissfully unaware…but didn't work. I lie awake, tossing and turning, struggling and fighting, or I sank into haunting nightmares that had me jerking awake, panting and whimpering and coated in a fine sheen of sweat.

I was going mad. I could feel myself slipping.

Terror burned in the back of my throat, frustration tightened my body, exhaustion weighted my mind.

I was self-destructing.

~.~

_What would Dad say if he could see you now? His little girl – forgetting, ignoring, everything he taught her. Giving away everything for a man. Not even a man. A thing._  
__

_**I don't care. He challenged me, intrigued me, confused and infuriated me. I felt-**_

_What? Love? Stupid girl._  
__

_**No. Not love. Something more. Deeper, stronger. Something I want back.**_

_So you'll forgive him what he's done? Forget that he took your friends, took your home…took your sanity? You're disgusting. You're pathetic. You should just-_

Words echoing my head, pounding, I cried out, desperate for release.

The emotional hurt boiled, ran over, and I lashed out, slamming my fists into the unforgiving steel of the dark corridor I huddled in. Physical pain exploded and for a moment – a blissful string of heartbeats – I had something else to focus on, something to chase away the voices. Something to silence the argumentative spirits – the angel and the devil – perched on my shoulders, something that, if even for an instant, brought my mind and soul back onto the same page.

"What was that?"

"Claire, is that you?"

Voices. A pair of flashlight beams bouncing around the corner, pooling inches from my boots.

I'd thought I was alone. I was supposed to be. It was well after curfew.

Cradling my abused hands against my chest, I drew back as footsteps moved closer. I slid along the wall, looking for the deeper shadows. The pools of light grew, got brighter, and then they were there, rounding the corner, their eyes probing the dark.

I stilled, held my breath, and willed myself invisible.

"Okay, I know I heard someone." Chris turned, his yellow flashlight beam playing lightly over Alice's furrowed brow.

Her lips pursed, her eyes scanned. "Acoustics are shit in this tin can. Could have been from here, around the next corner, or from upstairs." Her light dropped, and she turned, waving Chris to follow her. "Come on, we'll keep looking."

Chris hesitated, jaw tense as he looked one last time, then he relented with a slump of his shoulders and started after her. "Wasn't like we were getting anywhere with the door anyway."

"We'll get it. Sooner or later. Umbrella hasn't made a door I can't get through eventually." They kept talking, moving away, voices and footsteps fading…fading….and finally

I moved again. Breathed again.

I wasn't sure why I'd hid, and the answer, if I dug for it, probably would have set off another round of internal arguments…but I didn't let myself dwell.

Not when there was the promise of something more interesting to hold my focus.

It took ten frustrating minutes to discover the door Alice and Chris had been discussing – a wide, steel affair, with a recessed Umbrella logo in the center at the back of a dark, lonely corridor – and then another three to figure out how it operated – a hidden keypad that slid seamlessly from the wall when my hand passed over a small, next to invisible, sensor set just above it.

Sleek and gray, it had nine numbered buttons, no zero, all lit softly from underneath, glowing a faint red. Curious, I traced a fingertip over the eight and found the key to be smooth and cool.

Then, on a whim, I punched in my birth date. Or tried to, anyway. I could only fit the first four digits.

_Nine numbers, four required to get inside…._

Math had never really been my strong suit, but I knew enough to know there were a lot of possible combinations; and that it would take time and patience to try them all.

It was just the sort of all-consuming project I needed.

~.~

I started slipping away whenever I could, sneaking away from meals, from my responsibilities, my promises, in favor of that silent, unyielding expanse of steel. I found a pad of paper, a pen, stole them and started keeping track of what pass-codes I'd already tried. I saw the others less and less and felt the ties that bound them to me, and me to them, begin to break.

If they cared, they didn't say so. Maybe they just found this occupied, physical withdrawal better than the broken emotional one I'd been putting them through before….

Me – I found it…freeing. Four, human shaped weights fell from my shoulders as I realized I could leave, could let go, that they didn't need me.

I only had to worry about myself.

I could focus on what I wanted, on my desires.

And right now they were all centered on the theme of showing that goddamn door who was boss.

One day, two days, three days, a week….

I almost got caught – twice – but then I got better, more careful, and avoiding Chris, his sister Claire, and the big bad Alice became easy.

Truthfully, my only real fear with them was that they would get in before me and I would be denied the satisfaction, the glory, of finding out what was hidden on the other side. It wasn't that I tangibly wanted whatever it was; it was more about the challenge…the _knowing. _Once I had that, had succeeded, they could have it – do whatever they wanted with it. The discovery would always be mine.

They wouldn't be able to that from me.

A week and a half, two weeks….

My notebook was a scribbled mess. I began to run out of ideas.

But I didn't stop. Just slowed.

I began to spend a lot of time sitting, and staring, instead of frantically punching in numbers.

I sat with that Umbrella logo, under it, leaned against, found it burned on the inside of my eyelids whenever I dared to close them.

The old concerns hadn't disappeared; they were just easier to deal with. Easier to set aside. I didn't doubt that they'd come roaring back just as soon as I didn't have anything else to hide behind, but that was a problem for then.

For now it was all about that door.

Eventually, I reached the end of my notebook – and the end of patience. And after I flung the pad, and the pen, away into the dark – the noises they made as the struck the floor wasn't nearly as satisfying as I hoped they'd be – I rounded on the keypad and blindly mashed my palm over the numbers, striking all the numbers at once in a, admittedly childish, release of frustration.

Numbers flashed up on the screen randomly, the first four that registered in my desperate key-smash…and then began to blink.

Instantly I stopped, hand stilling, and stared, head tipping.

They'd never done that before.

There was a mechanical sound, deep and uncertain, then the great red and white flower was splitting apart with hissing rush of air. The doors rolled back, sliding away, and a yawning black hole opened up in the wall.

And I just stood there.

One heartbeat, two….

"Seriously?" I muttered to no one, incredulous. "That's what gets you to open?"

_Wish I'd known that a week ago._

Hesitantly, I took a step, then another, straining my eyes and ears as I went. Instinctively, my bow hand reached, sought the weapon…then I remembered that it was gone and the first tendril of fear crept into my blood.

Was I really going to really going to brazenly enter a darkened Umbrella hide-away? Unarmed? No idea what might be waiting?

I took a breath. Held it. Closed my eyes-

_Yes._

-opened them, and crossed the threshold.

And suddenly there was light, bright and blinding, and with a sharp, startled cry of pain I whipped my head aside, burying my face in the crook of my elbow to shield my eyes.

I waited, heart thundering in my chest while dark spots danced in my vision and irritated tears leaked through my lashes to stain my cheeks, for something or someone, whoever or whatever had turned on the lights to strike out – to cut me down…

But they didn't; and slowly, blinking carefully, I lifted my gaze just enough to peek over my arm, to scan…and for the second time in five minutes going dumb in surprise, arms and mouth both dropping.

I was in a bedroom. A nice one.

_Cabin_, my mind provided slowly. _On ships they're called cabins._

Whatever.

Cabin, bedroom, sleep quarters…I might have even mistaken it for a luxury hotel suite it hadn't been for the lack of windows.

They walls were dark and warm. The lights that blinded me just a moment before were carefully mounted into the ceiling, gallery style, which was fitting considering the dark, charcoal smudge painting hanging directly ahead of me on the far wall, square above the huge, get-lost-in-me, bed.

I had a sudden, fierce desire to sprint across the room and throw myself upon it, jumping and bouncing like a child, but thankfully it passed it quickly.

There was too much else to look at.

To my left there was an ebony colored desk, a pair of computer monitors sitting quietly – waiting. Carefully, I shifted, reached, and gave the mouse a little flick.

Nothing happened.

They must have been turned off, or maybe there wasn't enough power to run them. Whatever the cause, I could ponder it out later, for now I was moving again, drawn toward a creamy, marble statue atop a pedestal a few feet away.

Horses, four of them, rearing and pawing, wild and untamed. They were all similar in their power, in their stances, but details set them apart. One wore a skull mask that stretched down its long nose, another had blood dripping from its wide, flared nostrils and bubbling from its lips. The third sported carefully sculpted armor; the fourth was skeletal, its skin stretched taught over its thick, long bones.

It was beautiful, if morbid. Creepy, but stunningly crafted.

It'd probably cost a fortune back when money had actually meant something.

I wanted to touch it, run my fingers down one of the wild-eyed animals' powerful flanks, but that thought kept my hands still and at my sides.

It'd survived the apocalypse; it was damn sure going to survive me.

I forced myself to move on, and stepped toward the one of the pair of low bookcases-

-and as I moved, I saw a shape come up in the corner of my eye.

Scrabbling for my knife, I whirled, and felt silly.

Just a door, one I hadn't seen on my way in.

This time, instead of just marching in, I paused and waved my hand through the doorway…and as I'd guessed they would, the lights flicked on with the movement.

There were sensors hidden somewhere, had to be, and I wondered if I stood still enough, for long enough, would the lights would go off again?

I added it to my growing list of things to puzzle out and slipped into this new room, spirit lifting considerably when I recognized it for what it was – a bathroom.

A gloriously private bathroom with a large, glass enclosed shower, toilet tucked behind a privacy half-wall and his and her sinks. It was just as stylish as the bedroom before it, just as handsome.

I considered taking a moment to play with the shower, maybe even taking one while I had the chance, but resisted in favor of stepping up to the sinks and reach for the mirror. With a little tug it popped open soundlessly and I peeked inside, figuring whatever I found would offer some clues about whoever's quarters these had been.

There was a toothbrush – r_ed –_ sitting in a gleaming, silver cup with an Umb_rella brand of toothpaste – surprise, surprise. A _shelf above there was a bottle of Safsprin – Um_brella's answer to aspirin, again, no surprise there –_ and a fancy looking electric razor.

_Safe to assume a "he" then?_

Up on the top shelf there was an unlabeled bottle made of dark, sea-green glass. Curious, I pulled it down and looked it over – smooth and cool – then popped the top and brought it to my nose for inquisitive sniff.

Memory instantly triggered, my blood immediately began to heat.

It was if Wesker had suddenly stepped into the room with me.

My fingers trembled, slipped, and the bottle fell. It smashed in an explosion of jumping glass, the rich, heady-scented cologne splashing across the floor….

And then Wesker wasn't just in the room, he was on top of me – in me with breath I took.

My heart clenched, my throat closed.

My soul wept.

Instinct kicked in.

I ran.

The heavy steel door purred closed behind me a heartbeat after I streaked through the doorway – I heard it, but didn't stop.

I kept running.

Around the corner, up the stairs; running, running, running as if the flames of Hell itself were licking at my heels.

They must have been.

I could feel the heat and hear the whisper of temptation.


	16. Chapter 16

A/n's: Alright, quick notes…this is one of those chapters that I really like parts of it, and am really unsure about others…. *le sigh*. Still lot of ground to cover, but only two chapters left, ya'll! Anyone excited?

One last thing - Valtivan is a drug I made up for the Umbrella Corp. – it's a pharmaceutical company, it should have a few pharmaceuticals, yes? ;) It's name is combination of real anti-anxiety drugs Valium and Ativan 'cause I'm lazy like that. Alright, on to the chapter!

Warnings: Swearing and blink-and-you'll-miss-it sexuality.

* * *

Chapter Sixteen

The Hanged Man

"_The Hanged Man is a card about suspension, not life or death. This is a time of trial or meditation, selflessness, sacrifice, prophecy. You stop resisting, and in doing so gain illumination. But in order to gain, you must give: beliefs, perspectives, wishes, dreams, hopes, money, time, or even selfhood. Sometimes you need to sacrifice cherished positions, open yourself to other truths, other perspectives in order to find solutions, in order to bring about change. One thing is certain, however, whether the insight is great or small, spiritual or mundane, once you have been the Hanged Man you never see things quite the same."_

_-Thirteen, Aeclectic Tarot_

Luther was on deck, deep in a two-on-two game of basketball (the ball was a slightly deflated relic rescued from the mainland during a smash and grab, the net had been jury-rigged from cannibalized parts below deck) when one of the deck hatches popped open and a familiar form flashed by, speeding past like a bat out of hell.

Double-taking, he lost track of the game and took a cheap-shot to the gut. The ball popped from his hands and was gobbled up by Jackson who danced around Luther's teammate Avery and sank it cleanly – nothing but net.

While Jackson and Thomas whooped and put on a pair of impromptu running-men celebratory dances (poor sportsman ship, that), Luther rubbed his stomach ruefully and glanced down the length of the deck again.

She'd run out of room apparently, and was now bent over the side at the waist like some sad, broken ragdoll. Even from this distance he could see how her body shuddered and trembled.

_Bit late to be coming down with sea sickness now, ain't it?_

No, this probably had something to do with Bill what had been telling him about: the withdrawal, the restlessness, the insomnia…the crying.

That whole – Umbrella business – rearing its ugly head.

Tearing his gaze away, he signaled the others for a time out.

"Let's call it for now, huh? I need a break."

"Oh, come on!" Thomas bemoaned. "We were just starting to catch up!"

Jackson slapped Thomas' forearm, "He's just scared we'd beat him; big bad pro-baller's gotta watch out for his image."

Luther just rolled his eyes with a snort. "Seventy-two – fourteen? I don't think I should be the one worried about his image…." Shaking his head, he smirked at Avery.

"Keep these two out of trouble. I got things to do."

Avery grinned back and nodded, "Sure thing, boss."

Then, while the other two put on the usual affronted male pissing show, Luther turned away and jogged toward the end of the deck, slowing as he approached to give her plenty of time to realize he was coming.

Last thing any of them needed was for her to jump overboard in fright.

Stopping a few feet away (far enough back, he figured, so as not to infringe on what was probably a private moment, but close enough to probably be able to grab her if she did take a tumble), he paused, observed, then offered conversationally, "That's the thing about living on what's essentially a small, really ugly, man-made island – eventually you're going to run out of room and are going to have to face whatever it is you're running from."

She stiffened sharply, and slowly, carefully, turned her head to glance at him.

He caught a flash of red-rimmed eyes and stained cheeks and then she was looking away again and he looked up at the thin, long clouds dotting the early evening sky, pretending politely not to notice the way she scrubbed her cheek against her arm.

"I suppose you could run in circles," he babbled helpfully, offering her a few moments to compose herself. He'd known women who'd made a living off weakening men with a show of perfectly timed tears, but he'd never, in the admittedly short time he'd known her, pegged her as that sort. She was more like his mother had been – that-too-proud-to-ever-let-anyone-know-how-much-I'm-hurting type. "But that'd get boring after a while, I 'spect. And besides, any problem worth having will eventually figure out a way to circle back on you and knock you on your ass."

She straightened, white-knuckled hands on the rail pushing her upright. Tossing her hair back from her face, she took a slow breath, sniffing through a stuffed nose.

"… 'Problem's' a strong word," she said finally, turning to face him as she delicately touched her mouth to the back of her hand. "I just…needed some air."

She was cooler, calmer. She'd even stopped trembling.

Luther didn't buy it for a second.

"Uh-huh." He folded his arms over his chest, cocked his head. "At warp-speed?"

Her eyes were swimming – not in tears now, but something else. Thoughts, emotions, things she was thinking, but not telling. He could see them, easily, rolling around in those hazel green orbs even though the rest of her face remained smooth, careful.

"Th…There was a bottle of cologne – Andrew's. He traded for it with someone. Sarah – was looking at it, dropped it. It got everywhere. I couldn't breathe. I needed…to get out."

Luther leaned, sniffed, and instantly believed that part of her story.

She reeked. Wafts of a dark, honeyed scent – a combination of spice and wood – rolled off her and tickled at his nose. In another world, the lost world, men wouldn't have gotten within ten-feet of her, much less dared to talk to her, for fear of a jealous boyfriend or lover.

In this world though, knowing better, Luther just smiled gently, and asked, "Got in your eyes too?"

Her eyes speared his, that uncertain hesitation back – the silent shifting in her gaze reflecting the turning wheels in her mind.

"Must have."

No preamble. No explanation. No opening for him inquire further….

He responded the only way he could think of.

"Come on, let's go back below," he said, jerking his head toward the hatch she'd come up out of. "I'll let you buy me a glass of water."

"Water's free."

He just grinned. "What can I say? I'm a cheap date."

~.~

_Why didn't you tell him? You said you didn't care…all you wanted was to get inside. He gave you an opportunity on a silver platter, what were you thinking?_  
__

_**That was before. I didn't know-**_

_All the more reason you should tell him. You have no business messing around with that man's things._  
__

_**I thought he wasn't a man?**_

_Don't get cute. You know what you have to do. That room to you will be like crack to an addict. Say something. Tell the truth. Now. Before it's too late._

In the mess hall, I sat alone while Luther rounded up a couple bottles of water. Arguing with myself while I waited.

I had lied. Perhaps not seamlessly, or perfectly, but certainly more easily than I should have.

_Tell him._  
__

_**I can't.**_

_You have to. You-_

A bottle of water came down in front me an instant before Luther dropped into the chair across from me. I jerked, reached for the bottle, and hoped for the umpteenth time Luther couldn't read minds.

Mindlessly I wrenched off the top and drank. Maybe if I were real lucky he'd get bored and just leave me alone and I could deal with this on my own.

When I was ready. Maybe. Hopefully.

_Because you're doing such a fine job thus far…._  
__

_**Shut up.**_

I glanced at Luther out of the corner of my eye, found him watching me thoughtfully and made a concentrated effort to settle down, calm down. To act like I wasn't fighting with the urge to run down through the bowels of the Arcadia and lock myself in the private quarters of a mass murderer.

_He was here. He touched those things, worked at that desk, slept in that bed…._

The bed.

_Fuck._

Too easily my mind could imagine what it would be like, how it would feel, to slip under that spread, between those sheets, to lay where he had, where his scent was sure to be strong….

My heart skipped a beat, heat curled through my gut.

"So," Luther suddenly began.

My eyes snapped to him and I tried, valiantly, to school my face into something normal, something relaxed while my lungs burned on the breath I was holding, while my pulse thundered in my ears.

"Do you remember when you told me that the reason that fuck-wit Andrew was such a royal prick to you was because you'd killed his brother? And you told me to ask him, if I didn't believe you?"

I willed myself to take a deep, even breath, and more or less managed it. It shuddered uneasily, but at least I didn't gasp like a fish.

"Vaguely."

"Well I did, you know."

Swallow. Blink. I had to give my body simple, direct commands. "Okay."

"He told me that you'd gotten obsessed with an Umbrella up-and-up and then turned a blind eye when he, not only killed your best friend, but called an attack down on the rest of your group. Said you just…stood by and watched."

My mouth opened, closed. And I looked down at my hands, silent.

"And I can see now that you're not going to deny it, so I'll add that after his, rather thrilling, tale, I talked to Bill. His version was…different, to say the least."

I glanced up from beneath my lashes, watched him tip his head. "You didn't know who he was. None of you did. And you fought for your friends. Tried to save them."

"But I didn't," I said softly. "And now, I-"

Luther held up a hand. "You didn't ask for it. You didn't plan it."

"No, but-"

He lifted his eyebrows, urging for silence.

"It happened. You can't change it. Can't wish it away. It is what it is."

Heart thumping, I waited to see if he'd interrupt me again, then, "Luther…I'm not that person anymore. He – changed me."

He shifted, and arched a single brow, "And?"

_And everything,_ my mind shouted, but physically I could only stare at him. My mouth didn't seem capable of working all of a sudden.

He sighed heavily through his nose and shook his head. "Of course you've changed. Everything we do, everything we go through, changes us. We're constantly growing, changing, learning – it's part of being human. In fact, if you didn't feel anything after something like that, I would be concerned." He folded his hands around his water and took a slow breath. "Events like that are what help us to see who we really are. They're what help set us down the path we're meant to walk."

His words sank in, stuck, clicked with something inside me…and suddenly my throat was closing again, my eyes were suddenly unable to focus again.

"Everything happens for a reason," I whispered.

He shrugged gently, then nodded. "Not to put too fine a point on it, but yes. Everything happens for a reason." Then he looked at me, directly. "And now that it's happened…all that matters, is what you do next."

~.~

"_The path I was meant to walk…."_

It haunted me. That simple phrase of Luther's.

It rolled in my head, confronting me at every turn.

I tried to tell myself I was already on the path I was meant to be; after all, I was on the Arcadia, I'd helped lead my friends here, we were safe, had food and places to sleep…we even had the promise of a chance to rebuild – to work with Alice and Chris and Claire and Luther and other survivors to make a new civilization, a new world, on the ashes of the dead one….

But it didn't work.

I lie awake at night, listening to the whispering sleepy noises of the others, and knew the truth.

This wasn't my place. Not anymore.

Perhaps, once a upon a time it had been; maybe it could have been, had I never met Albert Wesker…but I had and now the paths were diverging the wood – the others would go one way, I would take the other.

I had to.

As much as my mind raged against it, as much as my memory wept for what could have been, for whom I'd been, I knew my heart, my very soul, would never be at rest if I didn't face and accept all that could be – the woman I could be. The woman I was already becoming.

It wasn't just about survival anymore. I wasn't content with that.

I wanted to feel again.

I wanted to _live._

~.~

In the dark and the quiet, tired and aching in ways more than physical I found my way down through the stairwells and corridors. I didn't take my usual care, my usual precautions. I could have been seen, caught, but, perhaps fatefully, I met no one during my journey.

My pulse fluttered strangely, my stomach knotted uncertainly, but I was otherwise quite calm as I dug through my memory and purposely punched in the stumbled upon passcode. The door unsealed, parted, without resistance and the lights swept on to welcome me as I stepped inside.

The air was tainted. The scent of the cologne I'd spilled in the bathroom had leaked through to the main room and I could taste its faint, chemical tinge on my tongue as I breathed.

One breath, two, three…long and slow, deep and even. Lover-like, the scent wrapped around me – warmed me.

_Wesker._

The bed loomed in front of me – neat and smooth, ready and waiting – and I swallowed thickly.

Behind me the heavy steel door slid back into place, the faint click of the engaging lock echoing loudly. My palms went slick with sweat and my heart skipped faster.

_Leave._  
__

_**Stay.**_

A muscle jerked in my leg and I stutter-stepped, uncertain, before finally moving; one step forward…another…a third….

My trembling fingers brushed over the bedspread and my breath escaped on a small gasp.

_No._  
__

_**Yes.**_

I griped, tugged, and the charcoal colored blanket peeled back to reveal even darker sheets. My hands moved into them, found them to be cool, expensive silk, and the rest of me began to follow, climbing slowly over the foot of the bed to pause, on my hands and knees, in the center, hands fisting tightly in the slick fabric.

My eyes closed, my head dropped…my hands went lax.

_Yes._

This was where I belonged.

Gently I lowered, stretched, and pulled a pillow to my face. The smell of soap appeared, and something else, something without a true name…something that simply was.

It was the inherent scent of male.

I shifted, my head finding the second pillow to rest upon while I wrapped my achingly empty arms around the first, holding it hard against my chest. Maybe if I pressed hard enough it would sink right through the wall of flesh and bone and fill the empty place inside….

Blindly, I groped for and yanked on the blanket, letting it rise up and bury me beneath its soft, Wesker scented warmth as I shifted, just once more, to relieve a twinge in my side.

After that – I knew nothing. I dropped easily, painlessly, in a dreamless sleep without so much as taking off my boots.

~.~

How long I slept, I couldn't say, but I woke feeling more rested than I had in as long as I could remember….

But the guilt that immediately followed that revelation, however, was as strong as ever. It washed over me like a tidal wave and suddenly the blankets, so warm and comforting before, were now too tight, too hot. I struggled and clawed, twisted and turned, and rolled over the edge of the bed and hit the hard floor with an undignified thump, yelping in pain.

Swaddled pathetically, I lie there, various bits and parts throbbing, the ceiling going unfocused above me as my eyes heated and my throat worked around a strangled, mewling noise of distress.

Faces swam in my head: Amy, Sarah, Christy, Bill, Daryl, my father…they blurred, merged and became one angry, disapproving entity. The weight of their disappointment bore upon my chest, crushing my heart beneath their collective heels.

"I'm sorry…" I heard myself whisper on a shuddering gasp of a breath.

_No you're not. Not really._

My eyes squeezed shut, burning tears slipping beneath the lids and streaking down my cheeks as I shook my head.

_You can lie to everyone else…but you can't lie to yourself. You know what you felt…how right it was – __**is**__ – to be here. You know the truth._  
__

_**No! No, it can't…I can't….**_

I began to struggle again in earnest, pushing at the blanket, trying to free myself so I could run. I needed to get away…needed to escape.

_You can't run from who you are._  
__

_**That's not who I am! Umbrella is - evil! I'm…I'm not…I wouldn't….Wesker is-**_

_-right for you. A part of you. A part you didn't even know you were missing. Don't try to deny it; don't try to deny him. You'll only be hurting yourself – you'll never be whole without him._

My hands clenched, nails digging stinging crescents into the flesh of my palms, and I curled, fight draining out of me as I tucked myself into a fetal ball, knees as close to my chest as the tangled blanket would allow, my face buried in my arms.

The trembling began, gentle at first, then in great shuddering surges until I was rocking back and forth with the force of them.

I knew the truth now.

But it hadn't set me free.

_Not yet._

~.~

I stayed. And it got easier. A little.

The shower I eventually worked myself up to helped. It was hard to get worked up enough to go running anywhere when you were as wet and naked as the day you were born...

Wrapping myself in a fuzzy, white terry-cloth towel I discovered in the cabinet beneath the sink in the bathroom, I loitered, mind turning over my streaming thoughts while my eyes moved restlessly. I wasn't looking for anything in particular, just distraction in general.

I had faced the terrible truth within myself, laid it bare before me,…now I needed time. Time to process it; time to accept it – if that was even possible. Would I ever be able to look upon what I was doing, what I wanted to do, without feeling some fashion of guilt? Without thinking of the people I was betraying?

_And just who are you betraying? Daryl? Dad? They're both gone – dead – far beyond anything you could ever do or say. And the others…they don't need you anymore. They've got the Arcadia now, and Alice and the others. I'll bet they haven't even given a second thought to your absence…._

I chewed my lip – paced – and pushed the collection of pens and pencils in the heavy cup on the desk at the far end of the room around and around, noting as I did so that each had been stamped with the Umbrella Corporation logo.

My gaze drifted to where clothes waited for me on the bed. The broad red and white logo on the back of my vest stared back.

Unyielding. Unrelenting.

_Umbrella always marks their property..._

And I had put it on willingly.

_What more proof do you need? You are Umbrella. You __**are **__Wesker's. You'll never- _

Pausing, I closed my eyes for a long, steadying breath, then let my fingers drift, skimming them over the smooth surface of the desk and then dropping to one of the little handles on the drawers. It came open easily, rollers barely making a sound, and I poked, shifting the contents within with gentle curiosity. Office supplies rolled beneath my fingertips, a box of paper clips bouncing into a box of staples, rubber bands tangling together.

Not particularly exciting stuff…but – somehow – a little endearing.

_Nothing says normal like an office junk drawer._

Lips twitching, wanting to smile but unsure if I should, I pushed the drawer closed again and moved on to the one below it.

Files – neatly stacked in unassuming manila folders. Pausing, I considered, then lifted the top one and, after tucking my towel carefully into my armpits to hold it in place, flipped it open.

It took a couple of read-throughs to get around the science that was so obviously beyond anything I had ever encountered, but eventually it dawned on me that I was holding some sort of report.

"…_in light of these findings, I request the re-opening of Doctor Isaacs' work. Failures aside in the practicality of his later experiments, I believe his early theorizations were sound. We could have viable samples synthesized and ready for extensive, live subject testing within the month. I would recommend readying subjects M1-6 through F1-10 as previous testing has already proved that subjects with viral loads above 1.6ppb are resistant to any and all attempts at…."_

My brow furrowed. Testing? For what? And on what? What…or who, were these "subjects?"

Unfortunately, no matter how I tried to figure it, "M1-6" and "F1-10" meant nothing to me.

Sighing through my nose as my lips pursed thoughtfully, I put the folder aside and reached for one of the others.

~.~

An hour later – or perhaps a year later, it certainly felt that way – I put aside the last in the stack of files and surfaced from the endless streams of equations and ostentatious word play no closer than when I'd started to the answers to my questions. The only thing I had managed to confirm – other than the fact that prolonged exposure to math gave me a headache – was that Umbrella was, indeed, experimenting. On something….

_Or is the appropriate term, "with something?"_

A muscle throbbed painfully my eye and I decided to let it go, leaning back in the chair to massage the stubborn tick with gentle fingers.

Whatever it was, it was important enough, big enough, that it needed direct approval from the company's chairman. Though whether or not they'd gotten it, I couldn't say. The files in the desk were all communications _to_ Wesker. I hadn't found any _from_ him...

Less important, but just as satisfying, I'd decided that if I ever met this Doctor Brooks person that had authored these reports I was going to force him, or her, to sit down and explain to me just what they fuck they were doing in plain, human English; and then follow it up by asking him why he hadn't just done that to start with and saved me an aching skull.

Shifting my fingers from my eye to my temple, I pushed out of the chair and turned into the bathroom, tiptoeing carefully to avoid any wayward shards of glass I'd missed in my earlier, hasty and admittedly half-assed, cleanup, and dropping the towel I still wore as I did so.

Wrenching one of the sink's knobs with one hand, I pulled open the medicine cabinet and snatched the Safsprin bottle from its shelf. Rattling a pair of the round, candy-like pills (white with monochrome Umbrella Corp. logo stamped on side they bore a distinct likeness to a brand of mint I had, once upon a time, had a tendency to carry around in half-eaten rolls in my pockets) in my palm, I snapped the bottle's lid back in place and knocked the little capsules back, ducking my head beneath the shiny silver faucet to gulp at the jet of water and help them down.

_Warm water. Wrong knob, dope._

Swallowing awkwardly, the pills grated unpleasantly against the muscles of my throat on the way down, but the job got done and I made a mental note to remember that left equaled hot, right – cold.

Turning the water off, but leaving the Safsprin bottle on the counter and the towel on the floor (there didn't seem to be any harm in it), I left the bathroom and returned to the bedroom proper, crossing up to the bed to gather up my clothes and yank them on; trying to ignore as I did so the nagging feeling that I was missing something…something important.

The reports had raised questions, and then hadn't answered them, and while that shouldn't have been a big deal – I wasn't, after all, anywhere I hadn't been before reading them – it didn't feel that way. There was something that wasn't sitting right. Details that, like puzzle pieces, were so _close_ I could see how they belonged together…but couldn't join them until I found the missing piece that belong in-between.

_But I've been through all the reports…and the rest of the desk was empty. Where else can I turn?_

Fingering one of the small, hard metal buttons on my vest thoughtfully, my gaze flicked to the computer monitors on the desk.

_If I could turn those on…._

My teeth worried my lip, uncertain as I weighed the options, then, soothing the little wounds I'd torn with my tongue I gave the button I was toying with a purposeful flick and moved to the desk. Taking the chair again, I sat straight-backed and alert, one hand reaching for the mouse automatically while the other stretched to the monitors and pressed the little power buttons hopefully.

Nothing.

I jiggled the mouse.

The monitors stayed remained unhelpfully unresponsive.

Fingers drumming a busy tattoo on the mouse, I paused, then pushed the chair back, bending forward to look under the desk.

No tower in the traditional sense...,but there was some sort of device under there and with a sigh, I slipped from the chair and down onto my hands and knees to crawl in for a look.

For a moment or two I just stared at it, uncertain what to do with it, then, falling on the old "button-press" standby, I flipped the only switch I could find…and was rewarded with a quick snap of electricity and a small green light that suddenly came to life on the front of black box. Leaning, I grabbed the lip of the desk and lifted myself enough to peek at the monitors – and found them to be blinking awake as well.

Feeling smug and particularly satisfied, I climbed into the chair again and rolled myself back into place in front of the desk.

_Me – 2, Umbrella Technology – 0._

Watching the monitors boot up, I dared to allow myself a little smirk of pleasure….only to feel slide away once the computer was ready and a fine script began to run across the screen.

"_Welcome."._

_"Today is October the 23rd."_

_"Time is currently 3:15pm."_

_"Temperature in the immediate surface is 53 degrees Fahrenheit, 11.7 degrees Celsius."_

_"Temperature inside the lab is 50 degrees Fahrenheit, 10 degrees Celsius."_

_"Checking systems… … … All systems normal."_

_"Displaying welcome screen…."_

And the Umbrella logo melted into existence, bright and bold on a solid black background. Beneath it a pair of boxes popped up, a small cursor already blinking in one of them.

"_Please, type your name and password."_

I blinked, shifted, and blinked again.

Something told me this was going to be harder than cracking the door lock.

By far.

~.~

Hiram O'Roarke was a nervous man by nature; one prone to anxiety induced flights of obsessive compulsive disorder and paranoia at even the best of times - which times hadn't been for quite a while.

Just when he'd finally been coming to terms with the end of the world as he'd known it and the possibility that he might never see the sun again – that second increase in his Valtivan prescription had really helped – Chairman Wesker and Sergeant Blackfeather had begun to make regular, separate, stressful visits to the satellite lab, both demanding his attention, both demanding results, both driving his blood pressure through the roof.

_Find her_, they ordered. _Find her __**yesterday.**_

Didn't they understand how difficult that was? Finding one person, any person, from space?

Even with a relative location with which to begin….

_Hopeless. Absolutely hopeless. I'm never going to find her and they're going to kill me. Blackfeather will put a bullet in my worthless head just like she's been threatening too and Chairman Wesker will…._

He shuddered, recalling too easily the rumors he'd heard whispered from the guys in Waste Disposal.

Word had it that there hadn't been much of Lieutenant Daniels left to dispose of.

_Just the parts he didn't like._

A fine sheen of sweat beading his hairline, he punched at the satellite controls, plotting in a change of course, unaware as he watched the numbers scroll by of the soft, keening whine he was making-

-until the Red Knight suddenly burst into sight in front of him and it ratcheted up to a scream.

Glimmering, slightly see-through head, tipping, the A.I. asked simply, "Are you alright, Mr. O'Roarke? Your heart-rate and respiration levels are far exceeding their normal parameters. Shall I inform Medical of your distress?"

"Don't sneak up on people!" O'Roarke shrieked, face hot and tight.

He was having some sort of aneurism. He was sure of it.

But he didn't have time to worry about it. He had to find the woman.

_Find her first and__** then**__ deny the Chairman and the Sergeant the satisfaction of killing me by having a heart attack. _

"I'm not programmed to sneak, Mr. O'Roarke," the Red Knight pointed out calmly - as undisturbed by O'Roarke's accusation as it had been by his scream.

"Then go do something you _are_ programmed to do and leave me alone," the technician snapped, refocusing his eyes on the screen in front of him, trying to remember where he'd been.

"My primary function is the safety and security of this facility and that is why I'm here."

"What is it this time?" O'Roarke refused to look away from his monitor. "Another lab rat get into the ventilation system?"

"I have detected several attempts by a flagged server to access the main system."

O'Roarke wished he was part chameleon and could look at the A.I. with one eye while keeping the other on his work. "So shut it down."

"The terminal in question is outside this facility and as such outside of my reach."

Then and only then, did O'Roarke look up. "Where is it?"

~.~

The intercom monitor set into the wall by his desk was bleating urgently, but Wesker ignored it, letting it ring on unanswered as he counted his way to the end of his pull-up rep.

Only after he was good and finished did he release the bar that hung in the doorway to the bathroom and drop lithely to the carpeted floor, muscles burning pleasantly with the exertion of the extensive workout. As he passed his desk, he scooped up his sunglasses idly, and pushed them into place.

In the moment before the video feed connected, he could see his reflection in the smooth glass – face smooth, impassive; hair dark with damp at the temples; and the burning red-glow adrenaline always left in his eyes, visible even through the dark lenses of his glasses – then it disappeared and was replaced by the twitching, anxious face of that piece of milk-toast O'Roarke from Communications.

"What is it?"

"Sir, it's the Arcadia. We've found it."

~.~

In record time Wesker was in the Satellite lab, watching over O'Roarke's shoulder as he pulled up image after image of the long-lost Arcadia. They weren't as crisp or clear as he'd have liked - they'd lost another satellite last month - but it was enough to see that it gloriously whole and intact.

Thermals showed dozens of tiny red-orange shapes moving to and fro, coming and going from the surface deck. O'Roarke scanned for audio confirmation, the air inside the lab crackling with meaningless snatches of conversation, but Project Alice was either keeping her mouth shut or was too deep inside the iron bowels of the tanker for the satellite to penetrate.

No matter. It wasn't as if there was any question she was aboard.

"How soon can we be ready to intercept?"

Blackfeather, communicating via the video intercom from barracks several levels above, replied, "I can have a standard strike team debriefed, supplied, and ready for take off in three hours."

Wesker didn't even hesitate. "I want double that, Sergeant. And I want it in two hours."

Blackfeather took a pronounced breath, but nodded. "Yes, sir."

~.~

In the end, it didn't take me nearly as long as I'd figured it would, but only because of sheer dumb luck.

Stumbling upon the correct username after several attempts – Chairman A. Wesker – and figuring that it would be just like Wesker to assume that no one but him would know the passcode to even get in his quarters….I tried the pair of them together and viola.

Access granted.

In the same, elegant script as before, the computer warned, _"You are about to access Umbrella's Bio-Organic Weapons Database,"_ and I felt my heart stop.  
_"Anything viewed beyond this screen is covered under the Umbrella Corporation security agreement and any second party viewing by unauthorized personnel will be punished under said company treason and terrorism directive Article 12, Paragraph 19, Section C."_

_"Discretion is advised."_

_Holy shit._

Roboticly, numbly, I moved the mouse, clicking without thought on the first thing that popped up – unsure where else to even begin.

~.~

"Valentine-"

The blonde straightened obediently, red scarab glowing as they passed through the security doors and stepped into the chaos of the hangar bay. Around them uniformed soldiers scrambled, team leaders barked orders, and jets whined and roared to life.

"Prime targets Chris and Claire Redfield are yours. Shoot to kill. Don't disappoint me again."

"Yes, sir," she responded, falling out of step and breaking away, headed for where her team waited, jet at the ready.

Without missing a beat, Wesker addressed Blackfeather - who remained in pace behind him. "Sergeant, I want those survivors recaptured. Take as many alive as possible."

He expected her to acknowledge and leave as well, but she hung on, boot-steps echoing his.

"Questions, Sergeant?" he growled, wondering already if he would come to regret promoting her as well.

"Sir…what about Project Alice?"

"She is none of your concern. I will handle Project Alice myself."

He heard her steps falter and knew he'd surprised her.

Had she actually expected to leave this in the hands of a _team_ after all their recent failures?

"Y-yes, sir," she sputtered finally, her voice at a distance then.

She'd stopped. He hadn't.

He kept going.

Didn't even slow down.

His jet was waiting.

"Understood, sir."

~.~

I dug until I couldn't see straight, looking at everything, readying anything I could open. My brain went into overload, and eventually desperate exhaustion won out over my consuming need to _know_. I plunged into sleep...and into a world of restless, shifting dreams.

_I was being held down, faceless strangers in white lab coats stabbing me again and again with gleaming syringes, pumping my veins full of fire..._

_Wesker was above me, inside me, moving...touching. I reached for him and he suddenly snarled, lips curling back over broken, bloody teeth that he sank into my flesh, ripping me apart even as I moaned and writhed against him..._

_I was running through a hall of mirrors, my reflection staring back from every direction - each one with something different to say: "It was their virus." "They didn't mean for it to get out." "They did this." "Alice worked for them." "They created the zombies - the monsters." ""Alice's husband caused the outbreak." "They're working on a cure!" "Alice tried to stop him." "They need Alice for the cure." "They're experimenting on people!" "Wesker experimented on himself." Their voices rose, merged into a shrill, incomprehensible storm of sound..._

….And the dream shifted, and I slept on.

~.~

It was full dark by the time the Arcadia appeared before the fleet like a glowing beacon of light rising on nighttime horizon.

_How sweet_, Wesker sneered, body tightening eagerly, blood singing in his veins. _They left the lights on for us._

The jets swarmed closer, maneuvering into attack formations.

They were less than a mile out when the ship suddenly went dark.

One of the pilots seated before him glanced back, lights from the control board reflecting wildly in his visor. "They've activated emergency systems, Sir. They know we're here."

_Run and hide, little rabbit. Bury your head beneath the blankets. The Bogeyman is here._

His chin lifted, lip curling. "Take them."

The other pilot nodded this time, and flicked a switch near his left hand. "Alpha, Bravo, Echo, you are a go. Repeat, fire teams, you are clear. Fire when ready. Fire when ready."

There was a heartbeat, a momentary stillness, a collective holding of breaths before the storm….then the night lit up, explosions going off like so many fireworks.


	17. Chapter 17

A/n's: Well. Here she be. The beginning of the end. It's my fondest hope this chapter lives up all the excited reviews I got. I know action is not my strong suit, but I did my very best.

Specifically, I know the timing might feel a little weird as a lot of these scenes are happening at the same time, but hopefully you'll be able to see it through. For those of you following along with the "soundtrack" listed in my profile – we're currently on "Dance With the Devil" by Breaking Benjamin.

Also, for those who haven't checked out my profile recently – I just want to say again: Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I have received over 1,600 hits for this story just this month and…I can't even begin to tell you how much that means to me. You are all – reviewers and silent readers alike – awesome. Internet cookies for you all!

Finally…please enjoy, and I'll see you in the next, last, chapter.

Warnings: Swearing, gore, violence, death.

* * *

Chapter Seventeen

Judgment

"_With Fire as its ruling element and Pluto as its ruling planet, Judgment is about rebirth. Resurrection. It usually singles a big change, one that involves leaving something old completely behind and stepping into something completely new. Like closing the door on an old job or relationship and opening the door to something new and very different. It's about making final, difficult, decisions; and it means facing something that most don't want to. You can't hide any longer, this card tells you, all the dead have risen and are out in the open. Recognize that the past is past, and put it to rest, absolutely and irrevocably. Face what you have to face; make that decision. Change."_

_-Thirteen, Aeclectic Tarot_

The radar bleated, warning of their fast incoming enemy.

The main lights died, killed with a flick of a switch, and emergency lights flickered to life, washing everything in a hazy, uncertain yellow glow. A different switch sent a cool, mechanical voice booming through the ship, urging everyone to begin evacuation procedures in a seamless loop.

Rust and dirt began to flake down from above, shake loose from the very walls as the roar of jet engines closed in and thrummed through their haven of steel and iron.

Alice ignored it all.

She'd already done the math. She already knew what had to be done.

"Alice, don't do this."

Steady hands continued to check weapons, loading bullets into chambers and testing the sharpened edge of blades, before they were slipped into holsters and strapped on even as her weary heart squeezed with regret.

The flat of one Kukri blade hissed against the leather strap that held it in place across her back as she slide it into place and looked up to meet the twin gazes of the Redfield siblings.

"Or at the very least, don't do it alone," Chris echoed his sister, that same earnest, damningly honest, concern written into every line on his face. "Let us help you."

They were so much harder to resist than the screaming voice inside her that begged her to listen to them, that wanted nothing more than to throw down her weapons and run with them, to flee together while they still could….

But she'd prepared for this moment. Somewhere, deep down, she'd always known Umbrella would find them eventually and that when the day came, she would be the one to stand and fight. The one to finish it.

"It's me they want," she said, cinching her harness tighter with long, nimble fingers as she shook her head. "And I can use that to keep them busy while you two find Luther and get the survivors out."

"Alice, we're not going to leave without you," Claire insisted, blue-gray eyes stormy with determination as she stepped closer, hand outstretched-

-but suddenly the air was rent with the scream of metal and the deck was bucking beneath their feet, the ship tossing wildly. Claire pitched forward, colliding with Alice who was thrown back into the hall, catching it hard enough with her shoulder to bruise, while Chris pin-balled in the doorway. Behind him – in the wheelhouse – the console lit up, warning lights flashing and alarms shrieking, as somewhere in the decks below a deep, ominous groaning echoed up to them.

They were out of time.

Pushing herself upright, Alice gripped Claire's forearms and – ignoring her wordless cry of protest – shoved her toward Chris. "Go!" she screamed over the din that was rising up to smother them all. "Get the others out! I'll meet you!"

Umbrella was here.

~.~

Chaos.

The hallways were crammed with shouting, bumping, shoving bodies all trying to go in the same direction at once – all trying to be the first to arrive at their shared destination. The walls hummed, trembling around them with unseen vibrations. Emergency lights cast everything in a sickly, unnatural yellow hue. From the speakers hanging above their heads a detached, inhuman voice spurred them onward, driving them toward the hanger bay on Deck 3. The bitter scents of sweat and fear hung thick in the air, weighting every breath with terror.

For a moment, as Bill huddled in a corner, he was lost; cast back into those memories from the unholy days of the panic, that time when the ability to deny the horror of what was happening disappeared with the around-the-clock screaming and scattered gunfire, with the bodies of the slaughtered that staggered impossibly to their feet to chase down and feed upon those who remained….

_The world is gone, but the end never comes. _

_God, I miss you, Jenny._

The little band on his ring finger dug into his skin, reminding him of all that he'd lost…until Sarah's hand squeezed in his other hand, reminding him of all there was still left to lose.

He looked down, met those terrified eyes, and tugged her closer when the surge of the crowd threatened to pull her away.

"Hold on tight," he warned her.

Her head bobbed, fly-aways popping from her messy braid of hair, and she grabbed with her other hand as well, gripping hard.

He nodded back in approval, then looked away, scanning faces as they pushed past.

Where were they?

_Come on…come on! Don't do this, guys._

"Mr. Bill?" Sarah called up to him – obviously scared and uncertain and needing him to make a choice. To do something.

But what could he say? Do? He didn't know where the others were – couldn't figure out what do without them. He couldn't just…leave them.

No matter what the computer was telling him.

"I know, Sarah. I know." He squeezed her hand, trying to comfort her even as his own heart pounded wildly. "But we need to wait. Just a few more minutes, then we'll-"

Somebody touched him – a hand coming around his elbow – and his head whipped aside…and a quick, momentary, surge of relief washed over him.

"Christy."

Her lips twitched in an awkward movement, the mutant offspring of a relieved smile and anxious frown, and her eyes danced, looking at Sarah, then past them both as her brow furrowed. "Andrew's not back yet? Did-"

Screams drowned out the rest of Christy's question as the corridor was suddenly pitched into inky blackness and the ship quaked beneath their feet with a roar of protesting metal, throwing them to and fro, bodies crashing against and into one another.

Before Bill had even absorbed what had happened, the lights flickered and came back - dimmer than before, but just enough to see by.

People started running, any sense of decorum they'd had completely lost. It was all instinct now.

Something bad was going down…and no one wanted to be here when the other shoe dropped. They all knew what happened then.

People died.

"Come on!" Bill shouted, pulling both women with him into the crowd and holding tight as the surge tried to pull them apart.

"What about the others?" Christy cried, barely audible even right next to him.

"We're no good to them dead! We'll find them there!"

~.~

When I woke, surfacing through the hazy layers of sleep with a sudden, violently electric, jerk of awareness, I realized several things all at once.

A painful, burning protest on behalf of my back and neck for the odd, unnatural position I'd fallen asleep in. An uncomfortable soreness in my cheek and jaw because of the hard, plastic keyboard I was using as pillow. A loop of strangely muffled, definitely unsettling noises echoing through the walls. And, most upsetting of all, the fact that I was suddenly, and inexplicably, blind….

But only for a moment, thankfully. Even as I was bolting upright, the pain in my back and neck mere annoyances compared to the loss of my sight, and lifting my hands to swipe at my face, fingers digging at my eyes, I became aware of light – soft, low, and slight…but just enough to see by.

Heart careening in my chest, I stopped…and blinked, head tilting in confusion.

_Emergency lights?_

Little glowing spheres ran the circumference of the room, arching shadows up onto the dark walls, making everything seem twice as large as it was: the rearing horses were suddenly life-size and even more terrifying than before, the bookshelves stretched on into nothingness, and a whole family of monsters could have lived happily in the wide, inky pool seeping from beneath the bed.

The lights broke at the main doorway, leaving the floor to run up and around the frame and make it clear that that was the way out – that was the way I supposed to go

– and I stood, confused, but determined.

I didn't know why the main lights were out, and I couldn't make out what those strange noises were supposed to be, but I'd find out. All I had to do was head upstairs, ask-

-but the floor was suddenly jerking beneath my feet, slipping impossibly sideways, and I couldn't keep my feet. I flew backwards, body twisting, and slammed into the desk, head first.

A hoarse cry ripped from my chest as pain erupted in a wave of black that splashed into my vision. I hit my knees, hands slapping against the floor in a feeble attempt to keep from smashing my face as well. The desk rocked and the monitors tipped, fell, and crashed in an explosion of glittering shrapnel; the marble horses slipped from their pedestal and split into shapeless chunks of pale marble that bounced and slid across the floor. Books tumbled from the shelves, thumbing to the floor like incredibly fat, heavy raindrops.

Throwing one arm up to protect my already hurt head, I grabbed blindly for the desk, fingers curling around the lip, and hauled myself back onto my feet-

-just as the deck righted once more with a slam that sent more of Wesker's belongings flying. Myself, I tumbled again, but only somehow managed to only bang down onto one knee this time, and in seconds I was staggering upright again and stumbling toward the door. I slapped at the sensor, the steel swept open obediently, and I tumbled forward into a strange world of yellow shadows that shifted and jumped unnaturally.

More emergency lights flashed around me, throwing the corridor into dizzy disarray while a calm voice boomed down from above that emergency systems had been activated and that I needed to proceed in a calm, orderly fashion to the hanger bay on Deck 3. Cradling the hot, already swelling lump on the right side of my face with one hand, I threw out my other to brace myself on the wall, using the cool metal to feel my way around the corridor and down toward the stairwell.

_Deck 3…the jet hangar…that's – that's up and…to the left? _

It hurt to think, my brain felt like it was going to pound its way out of my ears, but I forced myself to pull up a mental map, trying to remember.

_No. No, it's to the right. There's no door on this side, I'll have to go around through the white room where-wait…what's that?_

Dropping the hand obscuring the ear on the injured side of my head, I paused and listened, becoming aware just then of a rumbling in the floor beneath my feet and an odd…but somehow familiar…_rushing_. Eyes narrowing, I turned my good ear toward the sound, trying to force myself to hear more, trying to make myself understand the confusing tickle of memory.

I took a step, the noise roared louder – closer. The walls joined the floor in its trembling….

And suddenly…it clicked.

I understood.

But of course, much too late.

Mouth dropping open on a gasp of horror, I stumbled back, turned and got a whole two feet before a wall of sea-water ripped around the corner and crashed into me from behind, snatching my feet out from under me and sending me tumbling through the cold, wet, dark.

~.~

The Arcadia was just beyond the windshield, his for the taking, but for the moment Wesker was content to study the information pouring in from the instruments on the Osprey's control panel.

Soon enough he'd have Project Alice's lithesome throat under his hands and the promise of watching her face go purple and blue, of seeing her eyes bug and burst as he strangled the very life from her was enough to hold him steady while he waited for everything to fall into place. Everything had to be _perfect_. That damn woman was nothing if not resourceful and he refused to give her anything.

He wanted her to know just how well and truly fucked she was before he killed her. She would appreciate just outmatched she really was.

His fleet swarmed around him, diving and twisting, gunfire ripping up geysers of water when it wasn't popping ribbons of holes into the tanker's metal hide. The ship tossed and keeled, and a mushroom of red and orange suddenly billowed from the low stern, steel and iron flying into the air.

A particularly large chunk clipped a jet buzzing too close and the plane jerked, spun, and crashed into the sea in a fireball that shot hungry fingers of flame high enough into the night sky to scorch the painted underbellies of its fellows.

"Echo 4 is down," the pilot to his left remarked without a trace of irony.

"I can see that," Wesker snorted dryly. "What of the Arcadia?"

The pilot to the right reached up, flicked a switch, and a thermal overlay swept across the windshield, coating the scene in layers of blues, greens, reds, yellows, and oranges.

"There," Right pointed, gesturing to a swirling mass of purple-blue that was sweeping into the slightly warmer green of the ass end of the Arcadia. "Her hull's cracked and taking on water. She's crippled."

"She won't be going anywhere but down," Left promised.

Wesker nodded. "Good. Send them in." Then he smiled. "And set me down."

~.~

The jet hangar was no better than the dark, nightmare corridors they'd fought through to get there: more screaming, more running, pushing, shoving...

Jets screamed to life, rotors roaring. Steel groaned, grinded, and shifted as the first, survivor laden, planes shot down their launch tracks, shooting through open bay doors and into the wild night. The sea raged, waves slapping, buffeting the once mighty tanker from side to side and sending panicked men and women tumbling and sliding across the floor. Streaking past were other jets, twisting and turning, whipping by the open bays, guns blazing as they shot at and brought down Arcadia planes as they launched.

_Umbrella._

It suddenly all made terrifying sense.

Sarah cowered, Christy screamed.

"I don't see them! Where are they, Bill?"

Before he could respond, he was bumped and he twisted to see a head of fiery red hair and a pair of fierce of blue-gray eyes.

"What are you doing?" Claire Redfield demanded of them as she tried to steer them toward the row of remaining planes. "Go! You need to get out!"

"We're not leaving without our friends!"

For a heartbeat he thought she'd fight him, was sure she would, but to his surprise she nodded instead, flaming tendrils of hair dancing about her shoulders. "The last jet, down at the end, it's being reserved for the fashionably late…you can wait there – but keep your heads down and stay out of the way!"

~.~

Umbrella fighters swept into place, hovering above the Arcadia as their bellies cracked open and ropes unfurled, slapping down against the deck.

"Go! Go! Go!" screamed crew chiefs and armored troopers hit the ropes, repelling down to the tanker, dozens of pairs of boots thundering as one against the steel as they fanned out, racing toward the hatches scattered across the deck.

At the head of her team, Sergeant Blackfeather hit their appointed hatch first and turned, waving her crew on. "Come on! Move your asses – we got a job to do!"

As her soldiers streaked by her, ducking down into the stairwell with weapons at the ready, she was granted a moment to watch the Chairman's bird come down, it wheels grazing across the Arcadia's slippery deck.

It bounced, slid, and finally came to rest, the side door popping open as the stairs unfurled and slammed against the deck with a _clang_. Chairman Wesker strode out a moment later, as calm and confident as if he did this sort of thing everyday – as if the aerial dogfights, the explosions, the very ship quaking beneath him meant nothing.

Watching him, seeing even at this distance how his eyes glowed and how his lips curled into a feral smile, Blackfeather couldn't help sending up a quick, mental thank you to whomever or whatever might be listening that she wasn't Project Alice.

~.~

I couldn't tell which way was up. My body twisted and rolled and my brain couldn't keep up. I sucked water, my lungs burned. Hard, unforgiving, metal brushed under my fingertips, grazed against my boots, banged into my knees and elbows.

I flailed, struggled, and pain lanced up my left arm, heat biting in near my elbow as I collided with something and cut myself on protruding piece of steel. Instinctively, I grabbed, holding on even though my arm protested, and pulled. My head broke the surface, aching lungs forcing me to gasp and sputter, cough and spit, as they tried to empty themselves of water and fill instead with cold, life-sustaining air. Salt-water stung my eyes, made it hard to see, but with the help of my sense of touch, I was able to figure out that I was clinging to a door, my arm wound through its wide, wheel-shaped handle. My fingers rubbed over it, found the jagged bit that had cut my arm, and found a safer place to grip as I fought the raging water to shift and bring my other arm up.

The wheel resisted at first, closed tight and firm, but eventually it began to give, turning easier with every spin. A seam appeared, minuscule – then suddenly wider as the raising water now worked with me to push the door open, slamming it so hard that the force of its swing almost threw me loose.

Gamely I hung on, gritting my teeth as the door bounced against the corridor wall within and the bone-rattling slam reverberated up my arms. My boots dragged, found purchase, and I pushed myself up, trying to get behind the door to force it closed again, fighting against the will of the invading sea once more.

An inch, two…I slipped, water slickened floor shifting beneath my feet, and the door jerked back, threatening to flatten me-

-but it stopped suddenly and began to again slide closed as a voice shouted in my ear.

"Come on! Push, damn you!"

Together we struggled, pushed, and finally got the door shut, Andrew quickly moving to spin the wheel into the lock position.

Panting, slumped against the steel, I let a heartbeat pass, then looked up at him. "Thanks."

"Thank Bill," he replied, swiping the back of his arm across his forehead, mopping up the water that had splashed into his face. "He's the one who sent me looking for you when you didn't come back this morning."

_Speaking of which..._

"Where is Bill? And Christy and Sarah? What's going on? Did we hit something?"

He started to shake his head, grabbing at my arm as he did so to pull me up, "I haven't-"

-as above a sharp popping noise began somewhere above us; muffled, but intimately familiar to anyone who'd survived as long as we had.

_Gunfire._

"Come on!" Andrew jerked me to my feet and together we took off down the corridor, boots squelching against the metal.

Something had hit us.

~.~

Alice threw herself into battle, the smiling blades of her Kukri swords whistling through the air as she cut her way through one Umbrella soldier after another.

Bullets whispered past her, close enough for her to feel the heat of ripped air against her skin, but she didn't stop. Screams echoed – hers, theirs, and those of scattering, terrified, survivors. Blood splattered, spilled, and turned to the floors to slippery oceans of red.

It was a nightmare. It was hell.

It was what Umbrella had bred her to do.

And if nothing else, she was going to make sure she lived long enough to make them regret it.

Yanking one blade free from the skull of the last – now dead – trooper in the group she'd encountered just outside the mess hall, she paused, closed her eyes, and sought inside herself. It wasn't as strong as it used to be, didn't leap immediately under her command, but the T-virus still lived in Alice's veins and with it she boosted her senses, searching for more of those that sought to harm her and those she cared about – those she had sworn to protect.

Thousands of shuttering heartbeats, murmuring breaths, and shrieking voices rose up and echoed in her head, instantly driving out everything else. With a gasp of pain, she tried to tune them out, tried to zero in instead on the cracking report of automatic weapons fire. If she just focused hard enough on the soldiers wielding them, if she put everything she had into it….

A tingling started up at the base of her skull, soft and itch like at first, then stronger…painful.

_He's here._

It should have been impossible, and her heart tried to deny it, but like called to like, and the virus humming in her cells knew another of its children was aboard – knew that at that very moment he was coming down the corridor toward her, unnatural hunger driving him, her death his goal.

Slowly, Alice turned and faced him, KuKris flipping in her hands.

"You again."

Umbrella's Chairman paused, and slowly reached up to remove his ever-present sunglasses, monstrous, inhuman eyes burning with red afterglow as his mouth tugged into a smooth, confident smirk. "Did you miss me?"

Her grip on her blades tightened as she shook her head. "Not even a little." And as he tucked his glasses into the breast pocket of that ridiculous sports jacket, she drew back her arm and let one fly.

He would dodge it, she knew – already his chin was dropping, the air around him seeming to shimmer as he began to move – but she didn't stay to watch to make sure.

Turning on her heel she fled, racing as fast and far as her feet would carry her.

She hadn't forgotten.

As much as pride told her to stay, to fight and win, she needed to give Claire and the others as much time as possible to escape.

If she was going to play the thin ice with Wesker and risk the possibility that it might be her to fall through…she was going to go down making damn sure he didn't get his hands on her friends.

~.~

Umbrella had reached Deck 3. Black clad soldiers swarmed their way down the corridors, regular and taser rifles alike firing. Survivors, still trying to make their way to the jet hangar, screamed, scattered, and ultimately got caught in the line of fire. They jerked, fell, and went down – some dead before they even hit the deck, others twitching and convulsing as electricity arched through their bodies.

Claire, her brother Chris, and Luther tried to help, setting up a defensive line and moving to fire back, but as Claire leaned around a corner, aiming up on a target, a hail of bullets streaked down the hall, knocking her weapon from her hand and threatening to take her hand with it.

Snarling in frustration, Claire reached for her secondary – a smaller, lighter pistol - and turned back…and was granted a momentary flash of blonde hair, a dark leather battle suit, and a familiar face before the guns opened again and she was forced once more to duck.

_Was that…? No. It can't be!_

But it was. Another glance confirmed it.

Jill Valentine.

Claire had never spent a great deal of time with the woman – and whenever she had deigned the convoy worthy of her company, she'd stuck closer to Carlos than anyone else – but there was no mistaking her.

And no mistaking the red scarab device glowing on her chest either. Claire was to intimately familiar with those to ever forget….

"Claire!" her brother shouted from across the hall, ducking as bullets cracked and sparked off the wall in front of him. "What's wrong?"

"The blonde! I know her!" she yelled back just as Luther leaned above her, aiming his beloved revolver down the hall. "No!"

She shoved Luther's arm up just as he fired, the bullet lodging harmlessly into the ceiling above them instead of Jill's chest like he'd been aiming. "No! Don't shoot her! She's a friend!"

"Are you sure?" Luther asked, brow furrowed uncertainly, eyes incredulous. "'Cause I'm pretty sure she's trying to kill us."

"She's scarabed – we have to get it off her!" She looked back across the hall, found her brother. "We have to save her!"

Chris looked from her, to Luther, then back again, obviously unsure, but after a moment nodded. "Okay – on three! One-"

Claire shifted, crouching into an easy position that would allow her to pivot quickly.

"-two-"

Luther cocked the hammer on his revolver, nodded determinedly.

"-three!"

As one, the trio turned and fired.

~.~

She had fought valiantly, Wesker could give her that, but it was, of course, futile in the end.

Out of ammunition, disarmed, injured and tiring, it was time for Alice to die; and he was more than ready to deliver.

She failed, swinging a fist at his face, and he ducked – _too easy _– kicked, and sent her slamming into a wall with a sharp _crack_ of breaking bone. Rebounding, she bounced to the floor, gasping and coughing as she struggled to find her way her hands and knees before he crossed to her.

_Too late._

He took her by the throat, lifted, and dangled her, mere inches above the floor, as he _squeezed_, rejoicing in the way her eyes widened and whatever curse she'd meant to throw at him came out as nothing more than a garbled hiss of panic.

Her pulse thundered beneath his palms, muscles of her neck tightening, and her hands scrabbled at his, trying to pry them free.

"Time to finish this," he told her, his voice lowering, turning to gravel as within him mutation stirred, itching along the back of his throat.

He still wasn't quite used to the strange, tentacle like mandibles that pushed their way through his mouth and past his lips, or the tearing pain they caused as his jaw unhinged to allow them passage, but he did take base sort of pleasure in watching Alice's face pale and her lips tremble around the scream she couldn't find the breath to voice. The thick, rubbery flesh uncurled, slime and spittle dribbling as the hard, boney "teeth" grazed across her flesh of her cheek. He dragged her closer, wishing he could laugh as she kicked out at him, and the tentacles widened, parting as they readied to bite down-

-but suddenly there was a noise behind him. A hiss of parting steel and rush of shifting air. His head snapped aside with growl, eyes rolling just in time to see the heavy metal door finish gliding open and two figures race through.

Figures that immediately halted, their eyes widening, mouths dropping open.

Figures that he immediately recognized.

An unimportant male from the band survivors at the lumber mill (whose name Wesker had never been bothered to remember) and…_her._

He blinked, caught in a rare moment of surprise, and felt his fingers slacken. Alice twisted, jerked, and tumbled from his grasp, dropping to the floor with a thud he barely heard.

Suddenly, the long-sought Project wasn't his biggest concern.

While Alice scuttled away from him, coughing and rubbing at her throat, he turned his back on her, reaching out instead for the woman in the doorway as his eyes tore over her, noting and filing away details quickly – a wide, angry bruise on the right side of her face, liquid rubies dripping from the tips of her fingers on her left hand from a wound unseen, an Umbrella logo – his logo – stamped on the breast pocket of her shirt, parted, trembling lips – before they met that intimately familiar green-gold gaze.

_Mine._

He heard it in his head, felt it echo in every cell of his body.

Saw it reflected in her eyes.

He jerked his head, started to pull the mutation back inside so he might speak – so he could call out her name, call her to him-

-but before he could there was a soft, familiar click – _a gun's safety being turned off_ – the crack of a gunshot, and pain – burning, blinding, all-consuming.

Then there was darkness…and nothingness.

~.~

_He really is a monster._

For one wild moment, as that truth sank in, I wanted to laugh.

For so long we'd casually thrown that word around – _monster_ – but it had always meant something else, something intangible. An evilness of spirit, of soul, rather than anything physical, but now, right here in front of me was the very definition in living, breathing color.

And – _heaven help me_ – all I wanted to do was laugh at the irony of it.

Or at least, that was all I wanted to do until he was turning toward me, those eyes – the very eyes that haunted my dreams and every other waking moment in-between – scorching over me and spearing into my own; until he was lifting a hand and holding it out to me…offering.

Suddenly the laughter in my heart disappeared and was replaced by a heat – a feeling too big to be named. A need that chased away everything else, a desire that told me to run – not away, but toward – and take that hand, to clasp it my own and hold on tight; to hell with the consequences, to hell with Andrew, and Alice, and everyone else, to hell with the Arcadia slowly sinking beneath us….

_Yours. _

I didn't say it – I didn't have to. I could already see the truth in his eyes.

My fingers twitched, my heart pounded,…and out of the corner of my eye I saw Andrew move, saw something in his hand glint in the half-light.

_A gun._

Everything stopped – my heart, my breath, my every thought – and before I could move to stop him, before I could even scream the cry that leapt to the tip of my tongue, he fired-

-and Wesker's head was snapping back, blood and bone spraying out behind him in a ruby fountain. He stumbled, staggered into the wall, and slumped, dropping to the floor with heavy finality.

One heartbeat, two…a shuddering, gasped breath…a soft, whispering noise of distress.

Numbly, I moved, barely aware as I did that Andrew was as well. He was racing to Alice, offering aid, while I crept to Wesker on slow, uncertain feet.

There was a sinking weight inside my chest, falling into my gut where it sat cold and heavy and inescapable. I felt myself fall, but didn't register the painful strike of the hard metal floor against my knees.

What was physical hurt…compared to this thing inside me?

I reached out, brushed my fingertips against his undamaged cheek – heart squeezing painfully when I discovered it to still be warm – and let my hand fall to his chest, to where his heartbeat should have been-

-but instead something hard, and vaguely square-shaped, rested.

I recoiled automatically, frowning, but then reached again, deciding I wanted whatever it was. Wanted to have it to take with me, to remind me, to comfort in the certainly long days…years, to come.

Unbuttoning his coat, my hand slipped inside and found the inside pocket. I dug, curled my fingers around the object in question and pulled, tugging it free.

Turning it over in my hands and leaning toward the light to see better, it took a moment to figure out what it was…but once I had….

I felt myself go dumb again, brain switching off as the truth short-circuited it.

I ripped it open, flipping pages quickly, and confirmed it.

It was my father's journal.

Wesker had taken it….Wesker had kept it.

_And he carried it with him. _

Something inside me broke as my heart clenched and any last bits of resistance I'd held, any last bits of wall still left around my soul, shattered and fell away.

There couldn't have been anything else for me. Wouldn't be. My life had started, truly, when Wesker had walked into it, and now it would end. I would never again feel as I had with him, I would never be as alive...

Clutching the little book to my chest, I let my eyes close and my chin fall in acceptance of it. In acceptance of what Wesker's death meant.

Behind me, I heard footsteps draw closer and then stop just off to my side.

"Move," Andrew commanded.

A muscle jerked in my cheek. I wanted to lunge at him, take him down and tear out his throat with my own teeth…but didn't. What would be the point now?

"Get out of the way!" He shouted then and a rustle of clothes was my only warning before he grabbed me, hand circling tightly around my arm and yanking me back.

I tumbled, fell back on my ass, and glared at up him as I wrenched free. "Don't touch-" But he'd already turned his back on me and was lifting his gun to Wesker again, aiming down at what remained of his mangled face. "What're you doing?"

"Alice says he'll come back, that one shot isn't enough," he replied calmly. "We have to destroy him completely."

I scrambled to my feet, glancing back to find Alice slowly climbing to her own, then moved up to Andrew, shaking my head. "You don't have to do that. He's dead. I-"

"_I'm_ making sure he stays that way."

I looked down, finding the sightless gaze of Wesker's one remaining eye as my mind whirled. Was it possible? Was he still in there? What did that make him? Was he some sort of new breed of undead? Did it even matter if there was a chance he could come back to me?

Instinct. Obsession. The delusions of a grieving mind - whatever the reason, I knew then, in a burst of clarity, what I had to do….

As Andrew's finger tightening on the trigger of his gun, I moved, and the weapon tumbled free of his grasp as he gasped and gurgled around the blade of my hunting knife…which I had buried to the hilt in the soft, thin flesh of his throat. His blood bubbled, oozed, and ran down to leak over my hand to mingle with my own. His death was certain, but as I stared down at Wesker, I twisted the blade, tearing a wider hole, hastening his end from minutes, to mere seconds. His body gave out, started to fall, and I yanked my knife free to avoid being dragged down with it. Blood spurted like a fountain, pooling beneath his head, bubbling at his gaping, fish-like, mouth.

There came a wordless cry of rage and distress – _Alice_ – and I flipped the knife in my hand, catching the gore-slickened blade between my forefinger and thumb so that as I turned I could send it flying straight and true-

-but she'd already moved and it stuck harmlessly into the wall rather than her chest.

I twisted, trying to find her even as I brought my hands up, fists curling, ready to go hand-to-hand…but she was too quick. By the time I spotted her, she was already swinging, the heavy, dark butt of Andrew's dropped weapon arching down toward my face.

I twisted, no time to do - or think - anything else, and pain exploded in the back my skull, and I crumpled, feeling rushing out of my legs, my body refusing to stay upright.

I splashed into Andrew's blood, but didn't have the energy, the will, to feel disgusted. Darkness was already closing in, the light retracting in my eyes like the iris in the film scene of a silent movie.

I slipped under, dropping into unconsciousness – but not before I felt a shadow fall over me, heard a deafening, inhuman, roar echo through the room and felt the satisfaction of knowing Wesker had returned.

~.~

It was a common misconception that Alice didn't feel fear; and truth be told, she sometimes encouraged it herself, appreciating the power it gave her, but the truth of the matter was – she did. Perhaps even more, even stronger, than anyone else, for she knew better than most the true horrors of this strange, savage world they existed in. The fact that death, and even resurrection as a member of the undead, wasn't the worst that could happen to you. She knew, only to well, that if one was truly unlucky, truly damned, they would find themselves in the hands of Umbrella to spend the last of their miserable days being tortured…experimented on. And as she'd stood over the body of the betrayer, that woman who was one of the those that had come with Luther, that fear had burned through her when Wesker's body had suddenly twitched and shifted.

Perhaps…if she'd moved fast enough, had reacted quickly enough, she'd have been able to put him down again, finish him for good, but she knew it was unlikely.

He was so strong…so fast…and he'd already almost killed her once...

So she ran, putting as much distance between them as she could as he jerked and staggered up onto his feet, a primal scream of vengeful triumph ripping through the room as he did so.

~.~

His body was numb, wooden, slow to respond…but with every passing moment it returned to him. Small, uncoordinated jerks at first, then smoother, stronger….

He saw Project Alice fleeing, watched her boots disappear in a flash of leather through the already closing doorway. Instinct, the predator in him, told him to follow, to chase and hunt her down and rend her flesh, spill her blood, with his bare hands...but something else had him hesitating.

The scent of blood, coppery and cooling, hung in the air and when he looked to the source, he found her. Pale and still, pulse beating slow and thready.

The blood wasn't hers, he could tell that by smell alone, but she was nevertheless in danger. She was injured, unconscious, and if he left her to pursue Alice, he would surely never make it back in time to retrieve her before the Arcadia was too far gone.

And, of course, if he saved her…Alice would certainly disappear again, fleeing into the night like the ghost she'd once been trained to be.

Whom did he choose? The Project…or the huntress?

Whose desires did he fulfill – Umbrella's….

Or his own?

~.~

Alice raced down to the hangar bay, hopping over the bodies of the fallen without pause, without letting herself feel the rage and grief that would surely overwhelm her if she let it. She reminded herself that Wesker was behind her, would undoubtedly be in hot pursuit, and that Claire and the others couldn't wait forever – if they hadn't already given up on her – and let fear add length and speed to her muscles.

A battle was still ongoing on Deck 3 and Alice stopped just long to remove those immediately in her way, snapping a pair of troopers necks before they even knew she was there, before continuing on, ducking the bullets that her fired her way as she turned into the bay and – to her immense relief – found one plane remaining, Claire appearing in its open door to wave at her and urge her onward.

She crossed the bay in seconds and bounded up the stairs to find not just Claire, but Chris and Luther – seated in the pilot's chairs - and a handful of survivors huddled toward the back of the plane, partially obscuring someone who'd been stretched out on the floor.

_No time to worry about that now._

"We were starting to think you wouldn't make it," Claire told her, relief pulling her mouth into a smile.

"You know me, I like to make an entrance," she replied, punching at the button that pulled up the stairs behind her and slid the door into place with an air-tight hiss of closure.

"How about making an exit instead?" Luther called back to her, working with Chris to get the jet humming to life.

"Wait!" one of the survivors – a man, another of those that had come with Luther, Bob or Ben - shouted, coming forward. "What about our friends? They're not here yet!"

Alice slide her gaze over him and the other two that shifted behind him – the little girl and the other woman – and could only figure he was speaking of the two she'd left behind. The dead man…and the woman who'd killed him.

_The betrayer._

What could she say?

_Sorry, but your one friend killed your other friend and then I killed her – probably - I can't be sure, as I was about to be killed myself...?_

Luckily Claire was there to step in. "We've done everything we can for them, now it's time to start worrying about ourselves."

"But-"

"Hold on!" Chris suddenly shouted, interrupting as the jet suddenly jerked beneath them and began to move.

Through the windshield the open hanger door raced closer and closer, the empty bay speeding by…and then they were free, lifting off the Arcadia and speeding into the night. Umbrella fighters buzzed around them, Chris responded by putting the jet through its passes, twisting and diving, and turning to send them rocketing over the smoking, cratered main deck of the tanker where a single fighter was spotlighted where it rested by several, hovering, others. They shot past it, then doubled back to avoid colliding with another plane, and Claire grabbed at Alice's arm.

"Look," she pointed.

Blonde hair standing out like a beacon, Umbrella's Chairman was easy to pick out under the glow of the lights even if he did have his back was to them.

"We should have known," Chris murmured hatefully. "That bastard never has the decency to stay dead."

Alice snorted, started to respond, but was cut off by a soft cry from just over her shoulder.

"No!" Bob or Bill or Ben wailed, face falling. "No, no, no!"

Noting that he was still staring through the windshield, Alice turned back…and saw that Wesker had turned…and that in his arms, cradled almost tenderly, was the woman she'd struck down aboard the Arcadia.

The man behind her staggered and fall against the wall behind, a few dislodged life vests raining down around him. "I should have done something," he moaned. "Should have been there for her…."

Empathy tightened Alice's chest. Sorrow for his pain…and regret for the truth she would have to tell him.

Gently, she rested a hand on his shoulder, squeezed comfortingly. "I think…she's where she wanted to be."

His eyes snapped up, filled with understandable disbelief-

_We never want to think the worst of those we care for._

-and as Chris and Luther lifted their jet into the dark night and lead them away from the doomed Arcadia, she reluctantly began to share her story.

~.~

Wesker watched, just a moment, as the jet circled close over head, knowing as he did with his strange, T-virus enhanced senses that Project Alice was aboard, but then shifted the cargo in his arms carefully and turned his back on it, climbing up into his waiting jet instead.

"Contact Valentine," he commanded the pilots even as he moved away from them, heading toward the back of the plane to the stretcher that had been readied in preparation for the capture of Project Alice. "Inform her that the pursuit of Project Alice is now hers."

Medical supplies scattered, bouncing and tumbling to the floor as he swept the stretcher clear with one arm and gently laid her down with the other, his fingers already moving under her wealth of soft hair to check for injuries. "We're going back to New York. Now."

Hands finding nothing of immediate concern, he moved to the bloodied sleeve and began to pull it back.

"Sir-" one of the pilots began carefully.

He snapped back, "If _you_ would prefer to stay here, that can be arranged."

The pilot deflated, glancing sideways to meet the gaze of his partner. "Uh, no, sir. Back to New York is…very good, sir."

The second pilot tipped his head, the first just shrugged and turned back to the board.

Someone else could tell the Chairman that Valentine had gone offline.


	18. Chapter 18

A/n's: Oh God, ya'll...where do I start?

Shoutouts first I suppose, to make sure they're front, center, and visiable: **DenaHoshigaki** – you've been there since the very first chapter. You were my very first reviewer. Everyone who has enjoyed this story on FF dot net has you to thank. Without your support early on this story probably would have been regulated to the dusty confines of some notebook on my bookshelf/forgotten file on my desktop. **Onitsu Blackfeather** – Man, girl...you got it. Here I was, wibbling and meebling, uncertain and unsure and you showed up with comments that proved what I was writing was making sense – somebody was getting it! I wasn't just seeing the forest for the trees. You'll never know how much of relief you brought me and how much support and motivation your comments and reviews brought. **Deathcrest and -lover** – You two may not know it, but you two have been/have become some like benchmarks. Whenever I post a chapter, I look for your reviews and know, once I've recieved your "well done" seal of approval that chances are, everybody will enjoy it as well. **Beta** – Last, but certainly not least. My super awesome Beta. Without her, no one would have this story to enjoy. Thank you for putting up with my endless whinging and meebling and 1 a.m. "puhleeease, just look at this real quick for me" emails. *love*

Wow, okay, getting long. Everyone else, reviewers and silent readers alike – thank you, thank you, thank you!

Now, this chapter specifically...shit, I'm nervous. I hope you all enjoy. God, you have no idea. But, even if you hate it, hate it with the firey passion of a thousand suns, thank you at least for sticking with it and giving this story a shot.

Sequel? *shifty eyes*

Warnings: Swearing, sexual situations.

* * *

Chapter Eighteen

The Lovers

"_Originally, this card was just called 'love;' and that's actually more apt than 'lovers' as the card is ruled not by an emotional water sign but by airy Gemini. Gemini is the communications sign and is all about messages and making contact; also, as is it the sign of the twins, it's about finding your other self, about finding something your soul requires. When this card appears, you are being told to trust your instincts, to surrender your control to a higher power, and choose that career, challenge, person or thing you're so strongly drawn to, no matter how scary, how difficult, irrational or troublesome – as without it, you will never be wholly you; you will never be complete. It's sudden and unexpected, and it means a complete change of plans; but this is __**love**__. True love. Go for it!"_

_-Thirteen, Aeclectic Tarot_

_ His eyes – adapted for shadow and the dead of night – could only handle the white-hot glare of the high noon day sun for so long…but, for her, he flirted with the edges of his tolerance. Ducking into a small, out of the way room reeking of mildew and rodent droppings, he squared himself in the corner with the darkest shade, suppressed a weary sigh at the rank odor wafting up from the moss-grown carpet squishing beneath his boots, and eavesdropped through the dirty, broken window._

_ A floor below, lounging in the shade, she sat with that other – the dark-haired one with the bust and the penchant for batting her eyelashes - watching with mild disinterest as – if the splashing and shouting was anything to go by – several others worked at hauling in the drift nets they'd cast across the river._

_ "I'm just saying, Phil's got a point. I mean, don't you think it's a little odd the man won't tell us his name?"_

_ She sighed. A soft, whispering noise through barely parted lips. _

_ He wondered if she knew she made that exact sound often in her sleep._

_ He wondered how breathlessly she would gasp and sigh when he had her beneath him…._

_ "His name is Wesker."_

_ He'd always found loyalty to be a uselessly overrated trait in the past, but, for reasons he was still puzzling out, it pleased him to hear it from her. Perhaps it was because she held this little band of backwater survivors in the palms of her nimble hands and if he had any real hope of keeping the doubters – that miserable Daryl for one – off his back long enough to see his plan to fruition he needed her to convince them of his seemingly honest, mild mannered intentions….Or perhaps it had something to do with the images that, even now, were still rolling around in the back of his mind; those dark, heated fantasies conjured by the simplest of things – a sigh, a quick slide of tongue over parted lips, clever…__**nimble**__ hands…._

_ His hands fisted, knuckles cracking as they whitened, and he forced a measured, deep breath into his lungs, beginning a slow, deliberate count backward from ten as he exhaled._

_ "Where I come from, people have two names – first and last. Sometimes the real fancy folk even go for three."_

_ "Maybe Wesker __**is **__his first name, ever consider that?"_

_ "Who name's their kid, 'Wesker?' That's something I'd saddle a dog with - maybe - not the fruit of my loins."_

_ "Maybe the same kind that thought 'Christiana' was a good idea."_

_ In the midst of the marked moment of silence that followed, he found himself smiling…and quickly twisted it into a sneer. He took another breath, and started another count, back from thirty this time._

_ "You're a horrible person."_

_ It was said flatly, but without any real malice that he could perceive. And he did consider himself something of an expert on the subject._

_ A heartbeat later, her soft laughter floated up to him and he suddenly forgot what came before twenty-four._

_** Damn her.**_

_"In the old stories…" she began, then suddenly trailed off hesitantly. "That is, the ones my father used to tell, names had power – were magic. They could…transform beasts into men – and vice versa. Chase off witches and demons…bring gods to their knees."_

_ The pause was so long this time he actually leaned to glance outside – and found her right below the window, the part in her glossy, earth-colored hair staring up at him. A tiny, fragile, yellow butterfly floated past, fluttering between the two women as Christiana – __**Christy**__ – leaned over and let their shoulders bump gently. He saw her flinch, pulling away just slightly, but she covered it well, standing smoothly and swiping at the backside of her jeans idly as she jerked her head toward the water._

_ "Come on, let's go see what the big, strong menfolk have managed to provide for us wee, delicate flowers."_

_ "Mastodon, or no dice, says 'Discerning Female Monthly.'"_

_ Another laugh - bright, but fading as they moved away, footsteps crunching over grass and stone._

_ Idly, as he shifted back, the image of the little red journal drifted up to the forefront of his mind and, unbidden, he wondered if perhaps…just maybe…he should return it…._

A sigh. The feathery slide of hair over his trouser leg. The jerk of smooth, soft skin beneath his absently stroking thumb.

Wesker's eyes immediately peeled from the window, memory slipping away like water through cupped hands, and flicked down to the head pillowed in his lap just in time to see her lips twitch, her eyelids flutter and grant him a flash of dark, distant eyes. His fingers curled around the back of her neck, lifted and tipped her head…but she was already slipping back under, drifting away from him as her lashes dropped against her cheek once more.

And for not the first time, nor the last either he was beginning to suspect, she caused a storm in him – a seething rush of emotions: rage, frustration, impatience, longing, desire…confusion and _helplessness_.

As the fingers of one hand tightened in her hair, he lashed out with the other, metal groaning and bending where his fist contacted. "How much longer?"

The pilots were smart…and determined to keep their heads as there wasn't a doubt between them that the Chairman would indeed sending them rolling if they so much as dared to breathe in the direction of the pale, still woman he cradled.

Right replied quickly, "E.T.A. at the New York Facility is thirty minutes…and counting," while Left, added hardly a breath later, "We've already made contact. Medical will be standing by."

Lip curling at the back of their heads, Wesker said nothing, settling slowly,…as his thumb took up easy, small circles over the pulse beating softly in her throat once more.

He had her.

She would be his again.

He wouldn't accept anything less.

~.~

They had miles to go yet, hours left to travel, before they would reach the rendezvous coordinates and be reunited with other survivors of the Arcadia battle, but as soon as they were clear, as soon as they finally lost the tail that had been doggedly following them for the better part of what remained of the night, Alice had Chris and Luther put their jet down. They needed time – if only a few moments – to regroup, to pull themselves together…to cool the tensions that simmered unhealthily within the plane's cramped quarters.

While Claire and the others tended the varied collection of wounds, sustained by both human and machine, Alice stood quietly in the deep shadows cast by the jet's sleek, metal body, watching; her stormy eyes carefully minding the trio of figures that had broken off from the main group to huddle together.

The man – _Bill –_ had slumped, face haggard and drawn, to the ground, his shoulders hunching as he bent over and into himself, almost as if he was trying to ward off some physical blow.

She wished it could be that simple.

Christy, as she'd been informed the curly-haired woman's name was, kept pacing – frantic and jerky – with twin expressions of rage and sorrow warring on her face, twisting her mouth one way, then another. The other - the little one that Alice had to keep reminding herself was Sarah no matter what the haunting memories of another small, redheaded child tried to tell her - was the only one aware of her; those bright blue eyes spearing across the distance to burn into her soul.

Sarah had not taken the truth well.

Alice regretted their pain…but not what she'd told them. They needed to know.

Footsteps padded up beside her and she sighed softly, shifting her arms across her chest. "They'll never accept it – not until they see it for themselves. See her with him."

Claire tipped her head, brushed a comforting hand over Alice's shoulder lightly, and asked gently, "Can you blame them? They were family, the same way we are. Each other was all they had left."

"No," Alice replied quietly with a shake of her head. "No, I don't." She looked down at her boots, scuffed one lightly in the dirt. "In fact…I'm honestly hoping they'll use it. Umbrella is still out there, they still need to be made to pay for what they've done, and hopefully the fact that one of their own has now sided with that enemy, has betrayed them, will push them to join us in the fight. They should want to see Umbrella and Wesker come down just as badly as we do."

"Why did she do it, do you think?" Claire asked. "How could she, how could anyone for that matter, choose to…_be_ with someone, _something_, like Wesker? The man is pure evil, she had to know that. She can't honestly think he cares anything about her…could she?"

"He did save her," Alice murmured helplessly, at a loss. "He could have come for me…but took her instead."

"Maybe he wants to experiment on her, like the other survivors they took."

"Maybe he'll turn her into a puppet, program her like he did-"

"Ladies," as if on cue, Luther deep smooth voice called out to them and both women turned to where he stood in the jet's open doorway – half in, half out. "Sleeping Beauty's starting to come around."

Alice and Claire looked at each other, a shared thought leaping between the two sets of blue, and then they moved, turning their backs almost as one on the grieving trio outside in favor of heading in to try and put Jill Valentine back together again.

Maybe, just maybe, if they succeeded, she'd be able to help them understand.

~.~

_He'd had her, not once, but several times over the course of the night. He'd gotten what he wanted. He knew now what her passion flushed, sweat-slickened skin tasted like; what color her eyes darkened too when he ran his hands over her, when he dipped his mouth into those soft, sensitive places; what her body felt like writhing beneath – arching against – his own. He should have been satisfied, should have, finally, been able to cast her aside – his desires filled, his curiosities assuaged…and yet…._

_ He remained. Even as she slept. Even as he had things that needed attending; those niggling loose ends that needed tying before he gave the awaiting strike team permission to launch._

_ He didn't like it. Didn't understand it. Didn't want it._

_ Didn't want to want her. Not like this._

_ But still…he found his fingers dancing beneath the tangle of sheets netted around them to drift over her skin, to curl around the slim ankle of the leg cast wantonly across his thighs to work, absently, at the small knob of bone there. _

_ The sudden trip of her heartbeat, that quick stutter as she shifted from sleep to waking gave her away even before the dryly murmured, "Fiend. Can't a girl get some sleep?"_

_ "You did sleep," he told her, watching with more interest than he should have as she stretched languidly, her back arching, breasts thrusting upward._

_ His fingers tightened._

_ A smile pulled at the corners of her mouth as she twisted just enough to look at him. "For what, five minutes?"_

_ "Ten. I was feeling generous."_

_ "Oh my." A lazy hand flopped over her chest, patted her heart as she smirked at him. "I'm touched. Sincerely."_

_ Yes. She was._

_ His other hand joined the first, fingertips trailing up her calf, kneading muscle, toying with the sensitive cord along the back of her knee. He watched her drowsy eyes come alive, watched her tongue flick over her lower lip._

_ "I want you." He let himself say it – accept it – as he tugged on her trapped ankle and hauled her into his embrace, pulled her into his lap._

_ With her body sliding over his, her lips parting beneath his own…the unaddressed question as to why didn't seem to matter-_

_ -_and it didn't matter. Not anymore. Not to Wesker.

He had long accepted that he couldn't explain it, couldn't come up with any single, definitive reason. It was enough for him that he did...but as the memory flitted through his mind, teasing and tormenting him with the phantom brush of her skin against his, of the dark, mischievously eager glint of her eyes as she arched over him, of the taste of wild, uninhabited laughter crushed beneath his mouth, he could see the questions, the uncertainties, on the faces of the doctors as they tended her still unconscious form – as they poked and prodded at her, working through the battery of tests he'd ordered.

They didn't understand.

_"Why her?" _

_ "Why all this fuss?"_

He didn't care. They could think, believe, whatever the hell they wanted – she was _his_, not theirs.

All he needed from them were the words he wanted to hear.

"Sir?" Doctor Brooks was even meeker than usual, going so far as to actually flinch when Wesker rounded on him, the hand holding a plastic clipboard jerking as if he thought he might be able to use it as a shield. "I have the test results...and if I may say, she's a tough one. Scans revealed, besides the obvious injuries to her arm and face, an old fracture in the left sixth rib - perhaps a month old, must have been quite painful, that she survived at all out there with such an injury is quite-"

A hard, sharp exhale saved him from giving in to the temptation of impatient frustration and wrap his hands around the good Doctor's throat. Barely.

"Get on with it, Doctor." he snarled through gritted teeth.

The folder fluttered, papers trembling as Brooks rifled through them. "Ah...yes, of course, Sir. The M.R.I. showed some swelling, but no hemorrhaging. She'll have one whopper of a headache, but there shouldn't be any permanent damage-" he paused. Glanced up. "...That said we would like to keep her for observation-"

"No." His answer was quick, decisive, and not be argued with. "She goes with me."

~.~

Her clothes were ruined – stained with blood and stiff with salt.

He yanked on them, peeling them from her pliant, cool body with strong – lingering – hands. Her boots tumbled loudly, her jeans slapped, the stubborn vest went in ribbons, the shirt whispered…all into a jumbled pile on the floor. He'd see them disposed of later, and make sure they were replaced with something suitable….But for now he stayed, her head lolling back into his palm as he shifted her from his arms and laid her back into the soft embrace of his bed.

His bed. His quarters.

He'd refused to leave her in the labs – even understanding why Brooks wanted him to – because this was where she belonged. She needed to awaken here, amongst his things, in his space, surrounded by his scent and his presence. She needed to understand from the moment her eyes opened, from her first waking breath, that whatever she'd had before – whatever she'd hoped to have in the future – was gone.

Her life was his now. One with his.

His fingers brushed across the bruise running over her cheekbone and threaded into her hair, curling…crushing the silken strands in his fist.

There would be no escape.

He leaned, touched his mouth to her chest, felt her heart thundering beneath his lips, and moved up to the pulse beating in time against the thin, delicate skin of her throat.

_Mine._

He'd accepted it – the rewriting of his destiny.

His eyes slipped closed. He breathed deep, dragging in the scent of her_._

So would she.

_ Yours…_

_Ours._

The word flitted across his mind before he was even aware of where his thoughts were taking him, the idea taking a startlingly firm hold before he had even begun to decide if he agreed with it or not - if he liked it or not.

Him...her...

_Them?_

She was his, he'd decided that. He knew that...but - was he..._hers?_ Did that - would that - make a difference? Would it matter if she fought him? Refused him? Would anything really change?

_No_. _No, I will have her. Regardless..._

_..._but he couldn't deny the pleasure he had known before. Before she knew who - and what - he was.

Hot and willing, passionate and._..loyal. _In-spite of her fear. Despite her uncertainty.

_So brave. So bold, my dear huntress._

He couldn't argue that it made him want, made him hope that-

"Chairman Wesker."

Wesker stiffened, eyes snapping open as his body shifted automatically, instinctively dropping over hers – shielding her even though he knew full well the Red Knight couldn't see her…couldn't see them.

Even if the Red Queen hadn't gone homicidal back in Raccoon, and the White Queen hadn't betrayed the company by aiding Project Alice, he still wouldn't have allowed their brother computer to project itself in his quarters. They were his, and his alon-

-he stopped mid-thought, considered the implications of the soft body molded against his, and dropped his lips slowly to her shoulder, doting a quick, almost absent kiss over the faint curving bruise - his mark - there.

Something else he would learn to accept for her…if the payoff was keeping her close, keeping her where she belonged.

"What is it?" he replied finally, lifting his head enough to glance back.

The facility's A.I. couldn't take it's humanoid form here, but it could still access the monitor set in the far wall and through that it spoke, an Umbrella logo spinning in slow time to its lazy, unhurried speech.

"The board has asked me to remind you, Sir, that they are still awaiting your presence at the conference. They are eager to hear the results of the Arcadia campaign."

Wesker's lip curled in distaste.

The Board of Directors – sniveling, whining mouth pieces who smiled to his face, groveled at his feet, and hissed behind his back. If it weren't for the fact that he could not, physically, be present at all of Umbrella's remaining facilities and needed their eyes and ears, he'd have taken great pleasure in turning each and every one of them over to the science division for experimentation.

The mental image of that prick Saunders from Umbrella Paris being turned into something resembling a giant, neon cockroach had his hateful sneer sliding into a cruel smirk.

_If only…._

Unwinding his fingers from the fall of dark hair stretching across his pillow, he yanked the blanket up and covered her carefully before shifting away and standing.

"Very well," he told the A.I. "Inform them that I'll be there shortly."

"Aye, Sir," the Red Knight replied as Wesker quickly shrugged out his own blood stained clothes and tossed them into the pile on the floor with other, smaller set.

"In the meantime," he added, moving to his closet as he spoke and fetching clean garments. "No one is to enter this room but me – for any reason – and I am to be informed the _moment_ she wakes."

"Of course, Sir."

With that, the monitor clicked off, and Wesker was left to the silence of his quarters – a quiet broken only by the rustle of his clothes as he dressed, the rapid turning of his own thoughts…and the gently whispered breath and softly drumming heartbeat of the woman cocooned in his bed.

It wasn't until after he'd fished the Umbrella lapel pin out of the candy dish on his desk, stuck it to his coat, and was moving through to the next room that he realized his own heart had slowed to match the rhythm of hers.

~.~

Consciousness came in slow, varying degrees; and I swam through the thick, foggy layers, confused, my mind whirling.

I hurt. I knew that immediately. Pain was everywhere, every muscle, every joint, my very bones seeming to ache…but it was worst in my head. There it was piercing. Inescapable. It made movement impossible, made coherent thought unreachable….

I was warm, and dry, I could tell that much, but realizing it just brought more confusion as I remembered water, I remembered being wet...remembered gagging and choking on dirty, bitter salt-water….

Memories surfaced - bright, chaotic flashes of color and sound that painted themselves on the insides of my eyelids. Running through dark, yellow-hued shadows…shifting, treacherous floors beneath my feet…screams, the crack of gunfire…blood, hot and thick, cool and sticky…strong, hot hands moving against my skin….

My breath caught, and a vague, uncertain tingle ran across my skin. I tried to focus on it, tried to make sense of it…and more hazy images danced through my brain; memories of strong hands tugging off my jeans, leaving imprints of fire where they connected with my flesh. Lingering hands, unbuttoning my vest, pulling at it…a muttered curse hissed against my throat as the sound of tearing fabric echoed.

My eyes popped open…and my head spun and pounded with new intensity at the rush of new stimuli. Everything was too bright, too big, moving too quickly for me to keep up with….

And I had to squeeze my eyes shut again, swallowing back my rising gorge as I took a slow, deep breath…before carefully peeling my eyelids open once more. This time the ceiling above slid neatly into focus, but besides being dark and smooth, it gave nothing away and I realized with a dull stab of dread that I was going to have to work up the strength to move, to at the very least turn my head if I had any hope of figuring out where I was.

_Okay. Moving…right. I can do this._

My fingers twitched obediently when I sought them, my toes as well, rustling softly against the soft stretch of sheet and blanket I was wrapped in. Encouraged when mind-breaking pain didn't immediately set in, I let curiosity and my need to know, to understand and make sense of the images in my head, fuel me, give me strength.

My elbows found their way beneath me and jammed into the plush softness of the mattress to give me the leverage I needed to slowly prop myself up – slowly, haltingly, as the room began to spin again and I had to pause, more than once, to let myself adjust, to give myself time to process.

There was a lamp glowing across the way, sitting on a heavy, modern interpretation of a desk – all angles and curves, metal and glass – and while the light illuminated brightly the immediate area, it cast deep shadows into the corners of the room. I had only impressions, and educated guesses, to go by.

Dark, warmly masculine walls. A pair of doorways, one to the left, one to the right, both sitting open, but what lay beyond unknowable from my position in the bed. A sleek, gleaming face of glass winked at me from across the room – my own hazy reflection flashing back at me as I shifted in front of it. A monitor of some kind - a TV? Maybe a computer.

There were nightstands to either side of me, a lamp resting on each, and I reached for the closest one, stretching slowly to find the switch with fumbling fingers. With a soft click, more light burst into the room and as I blinked, staring down at the floor as I waited for the black spots to fade from my vision, I noted a jumbled, frantic pile of clothes.

Boots, pants, the tattered remains of what had been a vest…I felt myself frown. I knew those clothes. Those were my clothes….

The strange, erotic images from before swept through my mind again.

I hadn't imagined them. They weren't a part of some weird – and wonderful – dream. They had actually happened…but how? Who...

My eyes flicked to the others pieces resting in the pile. Bigger, longer…obviously cut for a strong, muscled form….

_A strong, muscled form that turned to me in the flickering dark, his strange red and gold eyes – like ancient coins stained with blood – burning as he lifted a hand and held it out to me…as the inhuman, monstrous mutation that spewed from his mouth twitched and curled, gleaming wet with spittle under the emergency lights…._

Wesker.

I knew it. Instantly. Instinctively.

Those clothes were Wesker's…and this was Wesker's room.

As the truth of it washed over me, I found myself picking up on the details I'd missed before: the familiar scent staining the sheets, the pillowcases…the inherent similarity of the design and set of the room itself. Hell, there was even a painting on the wall beside me - an abstract thing of red, black, and gray paint splattered and splotched across a canvas.

It couldn't have screamed Wesker louder unless the walls themselves cracked open and said it.

But…knowing that, accepting it, only brought more questions. How had I gotten here; and where was here, exactly? Was this still the Arcadia?

No…even as that possibility arose, I rejected it. Something had happened on the Arcadia…something Wesker had done, something I had done, meant we could never go back. Meant things...would never be the same...

But what exactly, I couldn't remember.

_A scream of rage and despair…the crack of a gun, a glint of a knife…pain, all-consuming, heavy in my chest…blood pooling dark and thick…._

My heart skipped a beat, ratcheted up in speed.

What had happened? What had I done?

I shook my head, trying to clear it, wanting it to stop pounding so I could think straight, and pushed at the blanket covering me, shoving them away as I suddenly found myself too warm….

_Too tight. Can't breathe._

My feet found the floor – _plush, thick…carpet _– and I pushed up, staggering as everything spun around me. I threw out an arm, tumbling against the wall hard enough to rattle the painting where it hung. Bracing myself, digging my shoulders in against the cold, hard expanse, I grabbed at my hair, pulling on it in frustration.

I tried to tell myself to calm down, to just breathe, and let it come…but I couldn't. My heart was careening in my chest, my breathe coming in ragged pants.

I had done something awful…something horrible…but somehow, something I had had to do, something I would have never forgiven myself for if I hadn't done it….

I knew it…but it didn't make sense. I didn't understand….

What had happened aboard the Arcadia? Where were the others? Where was Wesker?

What had I done?

~.~

"And what of the reports on Project Alice, Chairman? Is there any truth to the rumors that the T-virus serum she was injected with during her assault of the Tokyo facility was ineffective? Is that how she managed to escape despite your assurances that-"

"Or perhaps the other rumors are true."

Samuel Barns, the Director of the South African facility, blinked, his mouth still hanging have open as the Paris Director, seated across the table, shifted in his chair and smoothly interrupted, hurling the statement daringly at the coolly detached chairman, who, after giving them a flat recount of the events aboard the Arcadia had had very little to say since.

"Is it true," he continued, probably completely unaware of the way the Chairman shifted, the way a small muscle suddenly jerked in his jaw as his head turned to stare at him, "that Project Alice escaped because you instead decided to bring back a worthless survivor instead? As if any experiments we might run on her will have any value without Project Alice. _She_ is the key to the T-virus' undoing, not some dirty, little-"

"And the key to _your _continued survival," the Chairman interrupted, voice dangerously soft. "Is my good graces. If you wish to stay in them, Mr. Saunders, I suggest you stop worrying yourself over matters that do not concern you."

_So shut your mouth, you ignorant cretin._

Of course, he didn't say that, but Barns swore for a second he could see it – not in the Chairman's eyes, of course – but in the tilt of his head, in the set of his shoulders, in the hidden, menacing promise of his words. It almost made Barns want to smile.

Saunders paused, eyes narrowing, then turned his head away, nose going into the air as he sat back in his chair once more.

Dismissed and forgotten that easily, the Chairman turned from him and addressed the board at large. "Yes, it is true that Project Alice evaded capture once more; but I am unconcerned. She has been dealt a major blow. The Arcadia is gone and she once again has no where safe to run. Her followers, what remain of them, are scattered and broken. I am confident her need to avenge them, coupled with a lack of options, will undoubtedly drive her back to us once more, and when she comes, we will be-"

"Chairman, Wesker."

With a soft crackle, pop, and shimmering of red-colored air, the Red Knight hummed into being just off the Chairman's left shoulder and without missing a beat, the sleek blonde head turned, "What is it?"

"She is awake, Sir, and my sensors tell me quite distressed. Her heart rate is-"

Whatever the reading was, it was lost under the sharp, suddenly squealing of the Chairman's chair as he shoved it back. He stood, nodded, and said simply, "This meeting is adjourned."

And with that he walked away, the Red Knight – sneakered feet not quite touching the floor – as it fell into pace beside him.

With little they could do without him, the directors looked around at each other and, with a sort of collective shrug, shimmered out of existence one by one as they disconnected from their holo-projectors.

~.~

"How long as she been awake?"

"A few moments, Sir. I deferred in informing you just long enough to track her vital life-signs. They are quite high, but I don't believe-"

It was unusual for the A.I. to break off mid-thought, but not unheard of. Wesker didn't bother stopping. Whatever glitch the program had just run through didn't concern him.

He had only one thing on his mind.

"Sir…she is no longer in your quarters."

That, on the other hand, did give him pause. He turned on the A.I. so fast the walls around him blurred. "What? Where is she?"

"Checking…" The Red Knight's head tipped, eyes closing for a moment…before snapping open again. "Elevator two. Moving down."

"How far?"

"All the way, Sir."

The hot labs.

~.~

It was like some bizarre, wildly _unfunny _funhouse.

Long, twisted corridors lit with bright, blinding lights. Endless doors, some that breezed open like ghosts as I passed, others that stayed firmly, resolutely shut.

And not a soul in sight.

I began to wonder if maybe I was dreaming…or if maybe I was dead, and this was hell. And my eternal punishment was to wander alone forever, seeking that which I would never find. Tormented by shattered, fragmented, memories of what I'd had, lost, and would never have again.

Chilled, I padded barefoot down the corridor the elevator deposited me in, wishing I had thought to steal more than a dress shirt and a pair of boxer-briefs from the closet I'd stumbled across back in the bedroom. Ahead, as I neared it, a door whispered open, revealing a dark room bathed in a soft, white-blue glow, and I paused, chewing my lip uncertainly.

Should I go in…or just go back to the elevator…try a different floor, or maybe try to find my way back to where I'd started…?

Before I'd even consciously made a decision, my feet were moving, carrying me toward it and across the threshold.

The room was small, and furnished with a pair of heavy, comfortable looking chairs and a low coffee table…but I paid those little mind because across the way, on side the chairs faced, instead of a normal wall, glass had been set instead and that was were the light was coming from – from the other side of the glass wall, where masked figures in white moved, busy, working and paying me absolutely no mind as I walked up; drawn not so much by them, but by the still, prone figure amongst them.

A figure I recognized despite the pale, drawn quality to his features. Despite the hair that had gone light and thin.

_Phil._

I had last seen him at the lumber mill, fighting for his life, going down in a twitching, quivering mass as a taser dart hit him in the back.

_Phil._

Who was now strapped down to a metal examining table, strung up to so many machines he might have been a member of the Borg. Who's slow, steady heartbeat I could see displayed in a ghostly green wave on a monitor hanging above him – in a monitor one of the figures in white stopped to look at before turning away and reaching for a tray offered by another.

As I watched them, as it dawned me what I was about to see happen, everything finally fell back into place…I finally remembered.

The blood, the pain…what I had done, and why I had done it…why I would never be forgiven….

How clearly my destiny stretched out before me.

"You can't help them."

That voice.

I didn't have to turn. I'd know it anywhere.

"Him, or any of the others."

I raised a hand to the glass, fingers splaying over the blurred reflection I could just make out while, on the other side, one of the doctors lifted a syringe and popped off the cap.

"What are they doing to him?"

Wesker shifted, moved, and though he didn't touch me, I knew he was close. I could smell him - that wild, untameable, inherently male scent. I could feel him - the heat that rolled off his body, the weight of his eyes.

"Giving his life purpose."

"By experimenting on him…killing him."

_Flick, flick, flick_, the doctor snapped his fingers against the syringe, then moved to plunge the long needle into Phil's upturned arm.

"By giving him a part to play in the saving of the world."

I took a breath, held it, telling myself I was ready for what would come next, that I was ready for a truth that might not equal up to the need pounding in my heart as I slowly exhaled. "And me?" I murmured, voice dropping as Phil's heartbeat slowed…stuttered…stopped. "Did you bring me here to play the same part?"

A beat. A pause. A quick, shuttering heartbeat that had my gut twisting, had my soul crying out.

"No." He moved again, and this time I couldn't not look - my gaze snapping away from the lab next door to find him, to search his face, uncertain if I could believe the word echoing in my ears. "No, I think not." He reached up, removed his sunglasses, and our eyes met - gold and red against green and brown - as he slipped them into the pocket in his coat…and pulled something else out and extended it to me. Offering.

A little red book with blood-stained pages.

Andrew's blood. My blood. His blood. And somewhere inside, on a page I had never read, my father's blood.

My father's journal...the legacy of my past. Of the life I used to have, of the woman I used to be...

"I want you," he told me. Direct. Simple.

A command...

A promise.

~.~

He waited. Watching. Noting every little shift of her eyes, every little twitch of muscle in her face.

It wouldn't matter what she said, what she did. Her fate was sealed.

…But he still found himself wanting her to say it…wanting to hear her say she chose him willingly.

She stared back him – those eyes that had followed him ever since the fiasco at the mill steady on his – and then, slowly, finally, reached out,…but instead of taking the journal, pushed it back toward him.

"Keep it. I don't need it anymore."

He blinked, caught off guard...then snarled, his empty hand shooting out, catching her, dragging her to him. They collided, hands joined by the book trapped between them as his other hand pushed into her hair, held her head still, his fingers winding into the silk.

It wasn't enough. Not nearly enough.

"Damn you - say it," he demanded.

He wanted…

_Damn her_.

Needed to hear it. "Tell me."

His lips brushed her cheek, her fingers twitched against his…and her laugh ghosted across his skin.

"Yours."

He heard it. Dipped his mouth to taste it. "Again."

"I'm yours." She tasted of promise. Of loyalty. Passion...his for the taking, his for molding.

He took her mouth, fiercely, possessively, something inside him roaring in pleasured response.

_Mine._

_Always. Forever._

Holding hard, he forced himself to surface, to speak. "Come." The eyes that looked up at him, met his, were cloudy...but not with fear, or uncertainty. Her lips curved, and his body tightened. Eager. "There is much to discuss...much to do."

Oh, the things he would teach her. Show her.

The things he would do..._with her_.

Hand slipping from her hair, he sought, found her hand, and gripped tight, turning her away from the lab; his mind already leaping ahead to the gift he had hidden away in his quarters - that sweeping curve of carbon and metal that he had seen her wield in his dreams, his fantasies - and how he wanted to present it to her now, right now, and watch her eyes dance and darken with glee...

Confidently, he led her away; boldly, she followed, falling into place at his side as if she were meant to be there...had always been there.

Neither one of them stopped to look back when, just on the other side of the glass, the test subject twitched back to life with an empty, mindless moan of hunger.

~Fin~


End file.
